Hibernia venatica

HIBERNIA VENATICA

THE MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD

TO LIEUT.-COLONEL

H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT

£ re3p«tfuIlD Sctttcatr
(BY PERMISSION)

THESE EPISODES OF THE FOX DRAMA

AND THE DRAMATIS PERSONS AS PERFORMED ON

THE IRISH HUNTING STAGE DURING THE SEASON OF 1876-77,

IN WHICH H.R.H. TOOK MANY PARTS

AS PATRON, LEADER, FOLLOWER, AND OCCASIONALLY

AS "WALKING GENTLEMAN."

2061173

PREFACE.

THE indulgence of the public to my last record of a
season's sport in Ireland, emboldens me to offer a second
series of my letters to The Field, just as they appeared in
that journal, without revision or alteration.

I have styled the volume " Hibernia Venatica," hoping
thereby to place my country in a more pleasant and
popular aspect than it could command as Hibernia Politica,
Hibernia Paccata, or Hibernia Polemica.

The Greek, in the story, appealed from Philip drunk
to Philip sober. The writer would follow the example of
the outspoken Macedonian, and appeal from a community
inflamed with the alcohol of sensational politics, frenzied
by the phantasms of social rapine, and rabid with the
virus of fanaticism — to a people united and harmonious in
maintaining the chivalrous pastime of hunting, proud of
the prestige of their county packs, jealous of their repu-
tation, and, as in the case of the great body of the
occupiers of the soil, submitting cheerfully to some dis-
comfort and actual loss in furtherance of the common

viii PREFACE.

sport. For 'tis no small praise, though only justice to
the farmers of Ireland, to record that even in the dark
years of famine and pestilence, fox-hunting, which hung
on their approval, was never discontinued in that fearful
cycle, and that when class feuds and antipathies were at
their highest level, hunting, though never the pastime of
the majority, ever held the even tenor of its way, un-
molested, and practically, if negatively, encouraged.

Most countries can boast the present luxuries of high
civilization, beautiful scenery, the pathos and tenderness
of past associations, the treasuries of art, or the resources
of spirit-stirring sport within their borders. Ireland, not
altogether poor in the former categories, is eminently rich
in the last desideratum, which marks out this beautiful
isle of emerald sheen, thrown up like a terrestrial anaday-
omene as a waif from the seething Atlantic, to be a special
paradise for hunters, a very Arcady of pursuit, from the
golden vale of Limerick to the almost boundless grasseries
of Meath the royal.

Switzerland, with its concordant discord of nature, is
said to be the playground of Europe. Paris and Rome,
Venice and Florence, will ever swarm with curious visitors
so long as art is worshipped and history is enshrined in
men's thoughts and memories ; Scotland is yearly affected
by migrant gunners, with prudent appreciation ; while the
salmonidae annually turn Norway's rivers and fiords into
very tides of Pactolus.

Ireland — where St. Patrick took up his parable from the
wayside weed, the shamrock — alternately a bovine Bceotia,

PREFACE. ix

like Basan, or a green Goshen for sheep and shepherds,
offers hunting capabilities in its damp muggy climate, in
its verdant vesture, and in its comparatively scanty rural
population, such as no country in Europe, or, I believe, in
the world, can parallel.

Modern civilization, which has banished the booming
bittern and nearly exiled the screeching snipe, through the
Deanston fabrics, and opened out the surface by four main
trunk lines of rail, has hitherto proved, not, as in other
lands, antagonistic, but most ancillary to the royal sport.
Pursuit is thus made possible to the many, and scent and
going are actually improved.

That a social revolution has been advancing like a
spring tide in Ireland, must have been evident to all
observers of the country during the past generation.

"A stranger fills the Stuarts' throne "

is true of many an ancestral park, hall, or castle, and
many a settler in America, Brazil, or Africa. " Delicta
majorum immeritus luit ; " such delicta having been too
lavish an hospitality, too reckless a profusion, too careless
a reckoning with unjust factors and stewards of the Gospel
type.

The hunting-field bears strong confirmation of this
proposition. A few years ago, comparatively speaking,
the squirearchy and their friends were the main elements
at every meet ; now they only leaven the masses of
soldiers, professionals, " box for the season " folk, English
visitors, Scotch farmers, horse copers, horse trainers, and

x PREFACE.

railway people. Three packs, of the highest fame and
oldest traditions, are now presided over by " strangers ; "
natural aptitude and a coincidence of favouring circum-
stances having raised them to this exalted position in the
county hierarchy ; nor have any of the advense, so far as
I can gather, failed to justify their election to the venatic
presidency.

These circumstances, which some regret, but which, for
my own part, I think of the very best augury for the future
of the island, all show that Ireland is being very largely
exploited as a hunting centre, just as her salmon fisheries
have drawn thither multitudes rich in purse and full of
leisure.

At this moment some four or five packs of hounds
await each their "coming man," and will, I venture to
predict, be none the worse managed if entrusted respec-
tively to a stranger who has been entered in a good
school, and whose zeal for hunting has led him away
from home

" Spurn vain delights and live laborious days ; "

whose ambition will be in showing and enjoying the sport
he shows, untrammelled by local or hereditary prejudice,
but judging men and things about him from that truest
standpoint — his own unbiassed judgment and observation.
As for nervous qualms, arising from the perusal of the rare
land-begotten crimes, let no intending sport-quester in
Ireland give the subject an anxious thought. No hunting
man that I ever heard of was molested in Ireland. Like

PREFACE. xi

the richly dight but unprotected lady in Moore's song, the
hunting stranger will find lots of friends and protectors
wherever he goes.

" For though they are handy at pistol or stick,
A sportsman they'll welcome and treat like a brick."

The importance of hunting to Ireland may be estimated
by some of the following considerations : —

Absenteeism is allowed to be one of the sore plagues
and ulcers of the island. Here is a certain balm and pro-
phylactic.

Capital is still a huge desideratum. Hunting brings
capital, not vast, perhaps, but considerable.

Nay, more, does it not hurl away absurd and ignorant
prejudices of race and creed, and raise men to a common
platform of good fellowship and good sportsmanship ?
" The man who this day sheds his blood with me, shall be
my brother," said the great Plantagenet. Is not the com-
munity of peril and the sympathy of excitement a stronger
cement than half the nostrums of political patchers and
political pullers down, levellers up and levellers down ?

There are drawbacks, 'tis true, to my ideal hunting-
grounds — wire barricades gates and hedges so thickly that
one or two districts are shunned by straight riders as is a
harbour full of torpedoes by wary captains. In the days
when Irish patriots harangued in the College Green forum,
a great orator is reported to have said, " Every bush con-
ceals a knave, eager for prey and flooded with iniquity "
— alluding to three illustrious Irishmen of the day. In the

xii PREFACE,

country I allude to many a bush does conceal a wire strand.
Traps in other districts have improved the good old fox-
hood of the country away, and the modern substitute is
a poor creature, of much inferior type and prowess. While
a few large-acred men prefer the pheasant of the minority,
to the fox, the joy of the majority.

These things have been ; these things will be ; but
all this notwithstanding, Ireland is an unrivalled hunting-
field !

The old lady of tradition felt a thrill of historic
rapture at the very sound of Mesopotamia. Meath is a
modern Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates water
no fairer vales than the Liffey and the Boyne. The Suir
is more to us now than the effete though immortal streams
of Simois and Scamander.

CONTENTS.

i.

PAGE

Rehearsals — Harriers and hare-hunting — Their popularity in Ireland —
The Duke of Connaught in the field — Cubs and cubbing — Gaps in
the hunting circle — A visit to Ashbourne I

II.

Lever du rideau in Meath — Kells^Headfort — Fast thing from Shaucarn
— Bellinter and its beauties — Summerhill — Wilkinstown — Swains-
town — Carton, etc. ....... 8

III.

Opening day with "the Wards "—With the Louth hounds— The Flat

House — West Meath, etc. ...... 22

IV.

Kildare's opening day — Pageant at Johnstown inn and village — Aliens-
town — Lord Darnley — Scariff Bridge — Cork and Lord Fermoy —
Galway and Mr. Burton Persse— Maynooth— Mr. H. Stubber and
Colonel Chaplin . . . . . -34

V.

Stag-hunting in excelsis! — Bective House and its Host and Hosts —
Curraghmore Sport — Summerhill and its Snows — Scurry from
Ballycaghan — Victims . . . . . -49

xiv CONTENTS.

VI.

PAGE

Races and Rain — Punchestown Gorse — Ward run — Galway Blazers —

Meath West and East— Sir D. Roche . . . .64

VII.

Hunting bravery — Belgard — Kickers and Kickees — Sir D. Roche —

The Fairy House — Somerville scenery — Kilkenny sport — Shiner . 80

VIII.

Mr. Chapman and the run from Cullen's Gorse — Abbotstown — Cork

and Limerick— Kilteel and "Snow- Storm" . . .100

A bishop in parlibus — Stag-hunting— Mr. Dundas on "Gazalier"—

Bellinter harriers — Blue collars — Beltrasna Gorse — Limerick hounds 117

Traps and Trappers— West Meath— Kilbrew— Mr. Reeves' oyster beds -

and harriers — The Marquis of Ormonde — Straffan Bridge . . 134

XL

Stony Batter and mud batter — Poor-house Gorse run — Rathbeggan stag-
chase — Garradice — United Cork, etc., etc. .... 148

XII

Maynooth— Cullen's Gorse — Christmastide — The Mount Neil run — Mr.

French's death — Trim — "London" . . . .162

XIII.

Trim — Trimlestown and Lord Langford — Cryhelp — Westmeath Water

jumping — Kilkenny — Kildare, etc. . . . . .178

XIV.

Courtown company — Corbalton chase — Punchestown programme — Dan-

gan Bridge — Sam Reynell's death — Mr. Burton Persse . . 196

CONTENTS. xv

XV.

PAGE

Ballinglough burst— Culmullen chase— The Black Bull— The Grange . 213

XVI.
Rathcoole rendezvous — Fine run from Johnstown Kennedy — Baytown . 230

XVII.

The fox in ambush — " The Ward n at the eighth mile-stone — Snow and

Storm — Drumcree — Brannoxtown — Pageant at Abbotstown . . 245

XVIII.

Abbotstown levee — Mr. Archdale's fate — " Snow-Storm" — Kilkenny and

Queen's County sport — Philpotstown and Rathmore — Westmeath . 259

Dancing and Dublin — Bellavilla run — Venison and venerie — Duhallow

sport ......... 278

XX.

Larracor — Fine evening run from Pratt's Gorse — "Laragh" — Kill near

Killakee — A field squandered ..... 295

XXI.

" The Hatchet "— Beltrasna burst— Swainstown— Carlow and Kilkenny

— Maynooth ........ 315

XXII.

Maynooth and its multitudes*— Bective beatitudes — Mr. Murphy — Long

run from Dunmurry — Dunboyne and the Ward hounds . . 33°

XXIII.

Woodlands lawn, meet at — Kilrue — Bellinter harriers — Dunshaughlin

Reisk Gorse — Mr. Preston's stables and pack — Louth . . 348

XXIV.

Trim and Trimlestown — Mullingar meet — Bellavilla — Bill Ryan — The

dancing 6th ........ 367

vi CONTENTS.

XXV.

PAGE

Observation and observations — Somerville — Fifteen mile stag-hunt —
Captain Candy and Culmullen— The Ladies Churchill— Wexford—
Galway— Kildare sport . . . . . .384

XXVI.

Last scenes — Rath Gate — Corballis Gorse — Kildare Red-coat races—

Carlow ditto ..... ... 400

XXVII.
Partings and meetings — Rahinstown — Hunt ball at Naas — Skreen Hill 414

XXVIII.
Louth sport — Bloomsbury pageant — Huge meet — Navan races, etc. . 425

Brittas and Jackson's Gorse — Meath Red-coat races — Knox and Kathleen

— H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught ..... 430

XXX.

The Finish ........ 440

HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Leporum

Secreta cubilia lustrat ! :
" So ho ! so ho ! says the bold Marco !

Rehearsals— Harriers and hare-hunting— Their popularity in Ireland— The
Duke of Connaught in the field — Cubs and cubbing — Gaps in the hunting
circle — A visit to Ashbourne.

THE hiatus between the close of the grouse and partridge cam-
paign and the commencement of fox-hunting has been pleasantly
filled up in Ireland by cub-hunting rehearsals, and much harrying
of the timid hare. The latter sport is certainly far more generally
popular — if attendance and numbers be any test — than the pro-
cess by which young foxes are indoctrinated early into the sweet
uses of adversity, and taught how to pluck the flower Safety out
of the nettle Danger. Why this should be so does not exactly
appear at a glance. Perhaps the early and intempestive hours,
which keen cub-hunting masters have been always obliged to adopt
in the month of September and early October, have something to
do with the very thin ranks of their followers; perhaps the secrecy
which is maintained about these matutinal forays may partially
account for the fact, or an over-high ideal standard of the class

B

2 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

of horse which a fox-hunter should ride, when compared with the
modester qualifications for a harrier hunter. Certain it is that the
autumnal fields which accompany hare-hounds are almost plethoric
in their dimensions, embracing individuals of most of the large
studs who will soon be engaged in the more arduous and ambitious
pastime; while farmers — apparently reckless of the fact that the
gyrations of a hare in a narrow compass, when followed by a long
cortege all out expressly for jumping and schooling purposes, is
infinitely harder on crops and fences than the rapider whirlwind of
a fox chase — swell the currant-jelly ranks to a most respectable
host. So far as hunting has gone, the hare men have had much
the best of it, for the bouquet de lievre has been a more titillating
stimulant to hounds than cubs, or even old foxes, have proved in
this almost scentless season; and a few very animating chases have
been enjoyed by some harrier packs already — notably by the
Mallow, the Kildare, and the Newbridge hare hounds. The two
latter, indeed, have proved a most valuable adjunct to the large
camp at the Curragh and the cavalry regiment at Newbridge,
training half the regimental horses and giving their owners a few
capital gallops. As a matter of title, I believe I am correct in
stating that the Kildare pack claim the greater part of the Curragh
as their prescriptive arena; both packs, however, drive hares over
the vast plain from the surrounding border lands; and game is so
scarce, I hear, on the Curragh that the two packs meditating an
odorous assault on the single hare of the grassy common might
remind one of the two kings of Brentford distilling the sweetness
of a single rose. His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught
began his hunting experience in Ireland with Mr. Maxwell's har-
riers on Friday last in that beautiful reach of grass land around
Kilbride which the Meath and Ward Union hounds have made a
household word among hunting men. A fashionable and hard-
riding assemblage drafted from the Dublin garrison, and the Ward
Union men, mustered on the occasion; but the legend of the day
might be " great cry and little wool," for fur proved extremely

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 3

scarce in the county we crossed, and the merry little muggers were
very vociferous over the single short-running specimen that turned
out for their delectation. If, however, there was little of pursuit,
there was plenty of jumping, and the obstacles were of a kind that
taxed the energy and capability of a good hunter, and not a few
succumbed to the width of the ditches and breadth and height of
the banks. The Duke of Connaught was admirably mounted on
a long and low son of The Lawyer's — one of those exceptional
sort of horses who catch the judge's eye at once in the prize ring,
and are equally efficient and at home in the biggest countries. A
pleasant half-hour among the good things at Priestown, the resi-
dence of a famous one-armed horseman and supporter of all sport,
wound up a bad day's hunting; but if his Royal Highness, who
has only just returned from the Calpe hunt with its rock-to-rock
springing, witnessed a poor specimen of Irish hares and their
hunting (a pastime which Blome, a writer of the seventeenth cen-
tury, declares to be full of subtlety, and possessing divers delights
and varieties which other chases do not afford), he was gladdened
with the prospect of a grassy arena such as few portions of her
Majesty's dominions can equal or surpass.

There is a general consensus of opinion among all masters of
fox-hounds as to the absolute necessity — not to say expediency —
of rattling the young foxhood of their territories about, if only to
teach them the legitimate art of self-defence, besides the value of
the early quiet practice to the young entry. In England cubbing
is a regular institution, occupying a large portion of the quarter
preceding the regular campaign, and the number of cubs immo-
lated during this period seems to Irish ideas almost a wanton and
excessive sacrifice. Certain it is that no county in Ireland could
withstand the drain which the excessive keenness of many English
huntsmen make in the fox supply for the season. The Marquis
of Waterford is almost the single M.F.H. in Ireland who carries
out the English programme in its entirety — buying cub-hunters
specially for the purpose, and producing by November a list of

4 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

masks and faces which is far ahead of any of his brethren of the
craft. But it must not be forgotten that the Curraghmore hounds
have special advantages in the magnificent "chase" afforded by
the home woods and pastures, and the bearing and discipline of
this fine pack show in the season the benefit of these early lessons
in woodland lore. Most Irish masters have to contend with an
almost entire absence of forest privilege ; for any traveller through-
out the island must be impressed at once with the generally tree-
less and hedgerowless aspect of the landscape as he surveyed it
from railway carriage or coach. "Csedunt arbores qui alteri sseculo
prosint" was the motto of our forbears, in lieu of the "serit" of the
poet, and square miles of unshaded greenery make one imagine
that in some past generation a legion of arboricidal Gladstones
had been suddenly let loose over the land, with orders to leave no
sylvan or leafy thing standing. This want of woodland has, per-
haps, something to say to the staider system of cub-hunting which
obtains generally throughout Ireland — shorter in extent and infe-
rior in result to the English practice. Thus, with the single
exception of Mr. Mervyn Pratt's woods at Cabra, where the packs
of two counties take their pleasure alternately, I know nothing at
all comparable to the hunting facilities which the Lower Woods
afford to the Badminton kennels — the Northampton forests to
their packs. The burden from most counties has borne a most
monotonous iteration — game abundant, but scent at zero. In
Kildare, which is a very artificial country, the supply of foxes bodes
well for the ensuing campaign. There have been a few sharp
gallops, but want of scent has been the rule. Mr. Hamilton
Stubber explored the Queen's County with the same happy re suits;
while in Kilkenny foxes turn up whenever they are wanted, and
the average has been something over one killed each morning.
Lord Huntingdon and Mr. Trench find the Ormorid and King's
County territories well stocked, and so do the United Hunt, the
Muskerry, the Duhallow, and the Limerick hunts. In Western
Meath Mr. Montague Chapman has been very busy, and I heard

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 5

of a cub killed at Galston Park last week, who really showed
fine sport. In Louth Mr. Filgate has had to fight the same uphill
battle against low scent in covert till the i2th of this month, when
things improved at Hilltown, and a brace of cubs were killed
there, and another brace run to ground. In Lord Gormanstown,
who died very recently full of years and honours, this county loses
a very staunch supporter of fox-hunting in theory and practice; but
in this family it may well be said —

" Uno avulso non deficit alter

Aureus. "

Fox-hunting begins in Louth on the 24th inst. The obituary
list of the past week has been swelled by the name of George
Putland, who was a thorough patron of sport in all shapes — terra
marique potens. In him the Bray draghounds lose their enter-
prising master, and the Brighton of Ireland misses a pioneer in
all sporting adventure.

In royal Meath much of the cubbing is done in that remote
and picturesque corner, where Cavan, Westmeath, and Longford
have planted their marches, and Lough Shelin forms a reservoir
for all these counties — a rough country enough, but admirably
suited for the purpose, even if somewhat hard on horses. There
was such a fine stock of foxes left last season in Meath, that,
even supposing Lucina had not been propitious to the gravid
vixens, no apprehension of blankness in any quarter need be
entertained. The reason for choosing the hillier and wilder
districts for making young hounds must be obvious to any one
who has ever driven through this bovine country, where the
bullocks are as those of Basan, and where unaided nature alone
turns out horned stock in a condition to be envied by the most
patient and expert of stall feeders in the Sister Isle. I know
nothing more striking to an eye fond of pastoral scenery than a
Hidden transition from the more highly-cultivated but less blessed
fields of England to the grassy pastures of midland Meath, what

6 HIBERN1A VENA TIC A.

time the partridges are being sorely exercised by drivers and
gunners in ambush. There is a sappiness and a richness of
colour in the lush green grass which no other land can rival,
and every tree and thorn-bush acknowledges the fertility of soil
and mildness of climate which makes almost every wide pasture
field, with its well-bred, well-fed herd of ruminant cattle, a better
study for a Cuyp or Claude than even the best bits of Normandy
or Picardy. I have not heard that scent has been more pro-
pitious to Meath than to other parts of the Green Isle, which,
for the first time this year in the memory of its old inhabitants,
realized Virgil's description of a parched land unwatered by art
or nature —

" Cum exustus ager morientibus sestuat arvis,"

or that any very striking passages occurred in their cub-hunting
period ; but the forthcoming season is spoken of as likely to be
exceptionally brilliant, so far as large fields are concerned, and
an influx of distinguished visitors. Royal names are even
coupled with royal Meath's and kingly Kildare's hunting grounds ;
but, be that as it may, no descendant of the Stuarts can forget
that a special and spontaneous loyalty awaits him in the hearts
of Ireland's genuine sons and daughters.

On the 1 8th inst. the Ward Union Hunt were announced in
a very influential oracle of Irish sporting matters, and with much
flourish and circumstance, as about to begin their annual stag
chases ; and, in order to mislead still further, the point of ren-
dezvous was fixed at the kennels of Ashbourne, where, at a solid
and substantial dejeuner d la fourchette, the Ward Union committee
usually meet their country friends and supporters, as well as the
garrison of Dublin, and, it may be, the hunting section of the
vice-regal staff, with that miscellaneous aggregation of men and
women to whom the panorama of a stag hunt and the certainty
of meeting many friends and acquaintances is quite attraction
enough to draw them from a circumference of ten or fifteen

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 7

miles. The morning was glorious; the afternoon was almost
continuously wet. So it did not add to one's equanimity to find
at the usual trysting time, or it may be half an hour later, that
one formed a unit in a small body of poissons d'Avril, who had
been credulously drawn to Ashbourne's precincts by the same
baits — flesh pots and sport. The printer, it seems — or his in-
spirer — had shoved on the hand of time by a week. Hinc ilia
lachryma ! Hence these dripping garments ! But if the fiat had
not gone forth that "this day a stag must run" (or die), the
kennels, stables, and deer park were well worth a passing glance,
with everything about them as taut and ship-shape as in an old-
time seventy-four; the kennels in their wholesome sweetness
showing that "the nitrous air and purifying breeze" were im-
portant factors in Charlie Brindley's system, while the presiding
genius of the place was looking as hale, hearty, and vigorous as
if the classic bard of " The Chase " had drawn his ideal portrait
from him —

" The huntsman ever gay, robust, and bold,
Defies the noxious vapours, and confides
In this delightful exercise to raise
His drooping head and cheer his heart with joy."

It is certainly provoking to ride a long distance for sport and
see none ; but, on the other hand, the ditches looked on either
side of the road chokefull of grass, weeds, and other constituents
of ''blindness," and this Ward country is quite difficult enough
to cross in midwinter without the presence of any extraneous
impediments. No doubt the disappointment was salutary.

HIBERNIA VENATICA.

II.

• Tally-ho ! Gone away !

Lever du rideau in Meath— Kells— Headfort— Fast thing from Shaucarn—
Bellinter and its beauties— Summerhill — Wilkinstown— Swainstown—
Carton, etc.

MANY will be familiar with Charles Lamb's naive rejoinder to the
chief clerk or head of department at the India House, when he
was summoned before that impersonation of ruffled official majesty.
"Mr. Lamb, why do you come so habitually late to your office?
I must have some explanation, sir." "Tis true," stutteringly
answered Elia, " 'tis quite true that I do come very late, but pray
recollect how very early I go away." Now the Meath hounds are
the very antithesis to Charles Lamb's systematic curtailment of
the hurry due to red tape and departmental ukase. They begin
earlier than any pack I wot of in Ireland, and they leave off later.
Their precision at the trysting place on the correct card during
the season is often considered over-strained by the tardy and
unpunctual, and so long as it is possible to draw on during the
brief illumination of a winter's day, so long will Mr. Waller comply
with any reasonable request to try so-and-so — run the hounds
through that coppice or furze-brake — even where many a master
would think he had done more than enough to gratify an ordinary
appetite for sport in his field. In fact, the fox family in Meath
have a very uneasy time of it, once the cubs have shown signs of

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 9

being able to travel afield; and the description one Irish landlord
in London gave of another's retainers, namely, that Mr. Threestars'
tenantry were the most harried and harassed set of men he knew
of (meaning thereby their familiarity with distresses, processes,
and evictions, and such like engines of the oppressor), is very
apposite, I think, to foxhood in Meath. On the other hand,
during the close season, these interesting felons have "the tenderest
care lavished on their wants and caprices. Bulletins are sent
about respecting the health and habits of Mrs. Vixen and her
thievish brood. They take "young lamb" before any of our
sybarites; presents of game in fur and feather, black game in the
shape of crows, woodpigeons, and many other minor delicacies of
the season, find their way to the earth or hollow tree the family
are known to haunt; forays on hen roosts, felonies of pheasants —
all these things are not only condoned, but acquiesced in, as the
ebullitions of a wild, high-couraged race; while some noble sports-
men have, I hear, with a view to improve their physique and to
initiate them early into training, supplied the young esurients and
their mammas and papas with Spratt's dog biscuits, by a due
course of which food it may be supposed, theoretically, they
would be put on a level with their pursuers so far as condition
went, while their wily instincts would be so much weight in their
favour in the great handicap 'twixt fox and hound. Whether the
uew style of feeding works the desired result is a problem awaiting
solution; but I feel sure that if a turtle soup and still champagne
regimen was a specific for turning the ordinary vulp into an extra-
ordinary, straight-running, long-winded, bold tod, the remedy
would not be long wanting in certain quarters. Fortunately, a rat,
a newt, a frog, a beetle, or a mouse rank higher in the fox menu
than the veriest nectar or ambrosia of our cellars and larders.

The hunting of foxes in Meath ceased to be an Eleusinian
mystery to which the hierophants and the initiated (practically the
few who had "the office," as the argot goes) alone were admitted,
on Thursday, the igth inst. I believe I am correct in stating that,

io HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

in accordance with the time-honoured traditions of the country
and its hunting archives (inflexible generally as were the laws
of those old oriental hunters, the Medes and Persians), the pre-
vious Tuesday would have witnessed the lever du rideau on royal
Meath's fox-hunting drama, but that many of the principal sup-
porters of the hunt and owners of coverts were engaged in synodical
functions in Dublin of the gravest moment — in fact, electing
Lord Plunket Bishop of Meath (Ardbraccan, his palace, is close
to the county kennels, and its wide episcopal lands and woods are
much run through and over in the season). The scene of the
opening day is, I believe, equally fixed by custom or tradition, or
both, at Headfort, the spacious park of the marquis of the same
title, which graces with its well-wooded undulations and natural
lake (formed by the river Blackwater, now in full spate) part of the
line of hills on which stands the interesting old town of Kells,
whose history is so intimately interwoven with the fluctuations and
vicissitudes of Ireland's fortunes. The antiquarian would fain
wander by the Aryan round tower, or by St. ColumkilPs ivy-
mantled hermitage — pausing at the Celtic cross, whose ornamen-
tation and symbolism speak of a lettered and artistic past. The
hunter of foxes must hurry past many interesting signs and tokens
of a great past and comfortable present in Kells. In ten minutes
more, if his Jarvey will give the mare her head, he will be within
the cyclopean walls of Headfort Park, trying to find his mount in
the tumult of horses and horsemen, and the sauve qui peut, devil
take the hindmost, of the mimic fray; for a fox has been found in
the home woods already, and a very large and brilliant cortege,
strongly picked out with pink, is galloping up and down the rides,
while Bishop and Colton are cracking their whips, and the sylvan
sounds so long unfamiliar to the ear are filling space once more.
A ring past the stately house, and then we emerge in a rather
north-easterly direction towards open country, when, just as the
many-coloured pack, racing over brilliantly green turf, were begin-
ning to show us their form and pace so soon as scent (almost dead

HIBERNIA VENATICA. . n

in the woodlands) served them a bit, our fox got into an impreg-
nable bank. A second fox had, it would appear, started parallel
to him, and him we chivied, with no very positive result either,
through the woods, and into some burrow or other near the rail-
way; and now, during these pauses, we can take some stock of our
ensemble and their surroundings.

Homer made, said, or sung a catalogue of the transports used
in his famous war, but your scribe cannot undertake any enume-
ration of the sportsmen and sportswomen who flashed through the
russet-tinted woods or lingered on the verdant lawns. Enough if
we can glance at a few of the more conspicuous of the melee. The
executive deserve the pride of place. Mr. Waller has evidently
summered well, and so has his handsome workmanlike bay horse,
whom I recognized as a friend of last year. Goodall, the new
huntsman, is on a very neat grey of good lineage, but certainly to
the eye not equal to his weight, save when horses can go on top
of the ground, not through it. He looks the huntsman all over
(as indeed he is bound to be, if birth and breeding avail aught),
and his pack, full of lusty condition and bright as stars in a green
firmament, look as if they had reached even a higher level than
last year. Bishop, the first whip, was on a tidy-looking dappled
grey; T. Colton, the new whip (from the Duke of Grafton and
George Beers), was on a wiry bay — all good men and efficient, as
we hear on all sides. Of the fair forms en amazone, Miss Waller
was charmingly mounted on a well-known Kildare horse; so were
Miss Tisdal and Miss Kellett, and the Misses Reynell. "Cadet,"
who carried Mrs. Garnett, is a celebrity beyond hunting fields;
Lady Chapman's ponies were extremely neat. Big men must
have big horses — big somewhere, though not necessarily leggy,
or even tall. Mr. Sam Reynell was riding a stalwart bay of a
good stamp; the Hon. Harry Bourke's Phenomenon looked capa-
ble of doing as great things as he did last year; the Hon. C.
Bourke was on a capital flea-bitten grey; Mr. Mervyn Pratt rode
a fine hunter; the Marquis of Headfort rode two of his high-class

i2 HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A.

hunters through the day; the Hon. Captain Maxwell was admirably
mounted on a chestnut mare; Captain Trotter's bay looked as if it
could carry a heavier man than its owner (a harder 'twere not easy
to pick); Mr. Kearsley's grey was a very nice high-caste animal;
Mr. Dyas was on a rare weight-carrying stamp, of a light bay
colour; Mr. Naper, of Loughcrew, always rides nice horses; Mr.
Johnstone's colt by The Colonel looked full of promise; while
Messrs. Rothwell, Rowley, Mortemer, Hopkins, RatclirTe, Sweet-
man, Walker, Montgomery, Chapman, Froome looked very hap-
pily carried; and Master Wilson Patten (the youngest entry, I
fancy) looked at home on a neat black pony. Half an hour suc-
ceeded in doing hunter's justice to the good things which Lord
Headfort's hospitality provided, and while in the dining room the
topic of conversation was the hunting convocation to which Lord
Waterford had bidden so many hunting celebrities, and the high-
class sport he had shown them — notably two very good runs, the
first from Lord Bessborough's coverts, and the second from the
Castletown woods.

Presently we are by the side of a gorse which rejoices in the
name of Williamstown (Mr. Stawell Garnett's care, I believe),
and are gladdened by an almost instantaneous find and "gone
away ! " Popping over a low stone wall, we sweep past Dilmount,
when again sport is marred in a most promising stage by defective
earth-stopping. Trains in this part of the world wait only for
" the captain," so we bade a reluctant farewell to the pack en
route to Kingsfort, which, I believe, did not hold to-day. " O
dura venatoribus terga" must be the motto of this Meath line,
for an exchange from the saddle to a first-class carriage is hardly
a gain in comfort or even softness. I hear this line is very liberal
to hunters, and this fact, if true, must cover a multitude of im-
perfections and short-comings in charges and accommodation.
A dripping day is succeeded by an evening downpour, and the
lower country seems partially in flood, every brook having over-
flowed its banks. Thus far into the bowels of the earth (I mean

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 13

copy) had your scribe penetrated, when he received an account,
written in hot haste and with none of the intoxication of delight
yet evaporated, of the glorious finale of Meath's opening day —
which, miserable slave and bondsman to a niggardly company
that only runs two trains per diem, he was denied the joy of
witnessing, even if his testimony had been only that of a witness
placed by force of circumstances at a respectful distance. The
daylight was just beginning to wane, when a fox posted out of
Shancarn, made his point straight for the hill of Mullagh, nearly
seven miles distant, where the hounds had to be whipped off,
owing to the supervening darkness. Scent, I hear, was superb,
pace something short of flying ; and this express rate of travelling,
plus a big brook, weeded out the field, barring four — Goodall,
whose riding was simply "Goodallish" (pardon the expression,
but the Correggiosity of Correggio tempted me), the Hon. Harry
Bourke, and Messrs. Trotter and Kearsley. Of those proximi
longo intervallo I can give no account, and I tell you the tale as
'twas told to me. From all I hear, Goodall has already won
golden opinions in royal Meath. Friday introduced me to about
the smartest pack of bitches, small foxhounds, about a dozen of
the best-stamped weight carriers, nearly all greys, to be seen
in Ireland, and such kennel and stable arrangements and ap-
pliances as an amateur of hounds and horses and all their
paraphernalia rarely has an opportunity of witnessing. I allude
to Mr. J. J. Preston's private pack of harriers, with which he
hunts his " lordship " of Tara and the neighbourhood of his own
beautiful park of Bellinter, on the Banks of the Boyne. The
whole thing is so perfect of its kind, and so much good taste
and judgment has been exercised in planning and completing
every detail and minutia, that a description of the pack and its
entourage would require at least a column to do it common
justice. The kennels and hounds are under the presidency of
John Suter, well known to many who do their pursuing of foxes
in the Campagna, and to others in Herefordshire; while a

i4 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

groom who can show such a stud of high-charactered high-class
hunters — not the least partaking of the recognized cobby, short,
strong, stuffy, quality-lacking harrier type — in the acme of au-
tumnal condition, is to be much congratulated. Scent has not
been very favourable to this pack so far, but they have killed
a fair quota of hares already — well-nigh a score — and had a
rattling burst with an outlying fox, whom they sent to ground,
thus giving him a preliminary breather for his more regular
antagonists, the Meath fox-hounds.

I should have added, for the information of sportsmen on
your side of the Channel, that the squire of Bellinter was some
few lustrums ago the proprietor of Brunette, perhaps the most
successful steeplechase mare of this century ; although several of
the larger prizes and palms of cross-country contests did not fall
to her share, I think she was his highest trump card in a very
strong hand.

On Saturday Summerhill, visited by the Meath hounds, was
the magnet to draw forth fox-hunters from downy pillows, late
lounging breakfasts, and all other devices for killing the arch
enemy, whom methinks 'twere wiser policy in us ephemeral
mortals to propitiate by good service and sensible enjoyment of
the short or long lease of lives he gives us. Summerhill, Lord
Langford's fine park and mansion, is not only easily accessible to
its own county, but it invites pilgrims from afar — say from West-
meath and Dublin — by its comparative proximity to several
stations, such as Maynooth, Leixlip, Kilcock, Enfield, and, on
another line, Dunboyne, a place where many hunting men find
it convenient to keep their horses for the season, the boxes and
provender and the situation all inviting thereto.

It was my fortune to hack along the road from the latter town
to the meeting point — some dozen miles, or near it, of English
measurement — and to pass through a most peerless expanse of
pasture land, where a bit of plough is as rare as a black swan
out of Australia. To the left, at about two miles' distance, are

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 15

the woodlands of Carton, the Duke of Leinster's residence ; then
Colistown, point of departure of many a good fox, is passed,
and so is the Hatchet, a very favourite meet of this pack.
Then, once the chapel of Kilmore is passed, for miles the eye
rests on hardly a single homestead, hamlet, or building of man
in which a beaten fox would endeavour to baffle his bloodthirsty
foes. Presently the park wall and trees of our destination come
in view. Carriages flash past, and groups of horsemen, all bent
towards the same goal, join us. The meet is at the Northern
Lodge Gate, which opens upon a rather neat village, and by
n a,m. it is clear that, in addition to the usual Meath field,
there will be a considerable influx of visitors, for the advenes are
seen cantering down the avenue, past the house, and from their
direction the majority of them may be guessed to hail from
Kildare. In a few moments more the dog pack are busy in
that extensive belt of plantation which shuts out the view of
the park wall from the house of Summerhill, and before they
find let us glance at the rather extensive lawn party. Among
the non-Meath men are Lord Cloncurry, the Hon. Major Lawless,
Mr. Percy La Touche, two Mr. Blackers, Mr. Sherrard, Captain
and Mrs. Davis, Mr. F. Rynd, Mr. George Brook, Captain Frank
Cole, with many others. Grey was decidedly the colour of the
day — I mean only in horseflesh — for Snowstorm and Grey
Plover have certainly taken rank among the highest hunting
celebrities by their recent performances, not only in the hunting
field, but in hunt and farmers' races. The roll-call of Meath
would take too long to write at length; suffice it to say it em-
braced a small host of good men and good horses — the latter,
young and old, made, half made, and some with their hunting
troubles before them, like the young bears. Mr. Murphy was
riding Sapling, a smart bay horse, who has shown a bit of
galloping form already, while among the young ones a bay by
Blood Royal — ridden by a welter pursuer, Mr. Rafferty —
moved well, and looked like a promising hunter ; while Captain

!6 HI BERN I A VENA TIC A.

Tuthill seemed nicely mounted on a young chestnut of good
stamp, and Mr. C. Hamilton was on a Carlo Maratti horse,
who seemed a good performer indeed.

But the hounds are now in full chorus, and are rattling a
fox merrily and musically through the woods, while we emerge
at the eastern lodge gate, and presently somebody views a red
rover racing away towards Pratt's Gorse — a charming line, and
likely to lead to a good run. Is he the hunted one ? We tarry
for a few moments on the road in expectation, but not a hound
forsakes the old quarry ; so we get into the park again to find
the pack have slipped away in a northerly direction, and after
a ride of a few minutes we get a view of the country intervening
between the park wall of Summerhill and a point short of
Dangan Castle literally peopled by pursuers of all shades and
colours, who are not with the hounds, and don't quite know
where they have gone to. Some are incoherently slipping up
lanes, some are perched on banks just about to leap down,
others are quietly and patiently resigning themselves to their
fate of being thrown out in good and numerous company. But
a minute or two solved the problem. The hounds had checked
by a clump of trees, and thence, after a cast or two, took on
a cold line to the Bullring Gorse, part of which appeared to me
cut down ; thence over some stiffish fences, and a couple of large
but safe doubles, in a sort of semicircle, back by the Bullring.

The next stage was a visit to Rahinstown gorse, when three
foxes were on foot. Scent was not much better than in the earlier
hours, and the six-mile point that a Rahinstown fox made recently
was not to be repeated, as the driving power was wanting; so some
ringing was all that ensued, and that not very fast or furious —
Major E. Lawless showing us that neither his horses nor himself
have lost their straight-going propensities, one drop which he
negotiated being a perfect caution to unstrung nerves in men or
defective shoulders or forelegs in horses.

Meanwhile Mr. Maxwell's harriers were discoursing most excel-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 17

lent music in that pastoral district to the west of Dunboyne, to a
very distinguished circle of admirers, among whom was his Royal
Highness the Duke of Connaught, Captain Fitzgerald his equerry,
and a cloud of light and heavy horsemen, attracted by the fine
day, the inviting country, the certainty of finding plenty of furry
game, and the prospect of a pleasant ride ; nor were they disap-
pointed. The first hare, found near the trysting place, "Sterling"
(good name for man, horse, or hound), ran very straight and fast
for some twenty odd minutes, and was rolled over in the Moor of
Meath, to the great delight of Mr. Betagh — who, in Mr. Maxwell's
absence, held the horn of office — Mr. Leonard Morrogh, of the
Ward Union Hunt, Captain and Mr. Butler, of Priestown, and
other notables in the hunting world, who know what a quick thing
is with stag, fox, or hare. One used to hear a good deal of the
qualifications for "the man for Galway," among which were a
good trigger-finger, a quick eye, a firm seat and good hands and
nerve on horseback. As Duke of Connaught, his Royal Highness
is certainly by virtue of his title " the man for Galway"; but, titles
apart, and rank apart, the Prince certainly proved himself, by
universal consent, the man for the Dublin country. His straight
brld riding was on every tongue. Some inaugural function in
Dublin claimed his presence, and prevented the royal cortege from
witnessing the remainder of the afternoon's sport, which was very
good and satisfying. I forgot just now, in writing about Summer-
hill, to say that this park has already done good service to the
Meath Hunt, and that among the best things of their cubbing
season was a good run from here, and another from Mr. Fowler's
covert of Rahinstown.

On Monday this pack met at Wilkinstown station, not many
miles from the kennels. The day was bright and gaudy, with
a touch of winter in it when the sun was not asserting his supre-
macy. Scent ranged fairly good, considering all things, or the
hounds could never have given the satisfactory account they did
of a very twisting, home-staying, dodging lot of foxes whom they

c

.T8 H1BERNIA VENA TIC A.

encountered to-day, who tried every device foxhood is capable
of— running the fences and ditches, through sheepholes, over
foiled ground, and so on; but the pack gave them no chance,
following every turn and twist, working like harriers, and,
by the most exemplary patience and perseverance, enabled
Goodall to handle a brace of cubs and to run a third to
ground. It was quite a hound day, and the lovers of hunting had
a rare treat.

Tuesday among Meath men was a day of great expectations,
which were only partially realized. In the first place, the congre-
gating point, Swainstown, Kilmessan, is in the heart of a magnifi-
cent pastoral country. It is known to be fox-haunted to an almost
embarrassing degree; and Kilcarty Gorse is nearly synonymous
with, and implied in, the trysting place — equivalent to long odds
on a good gallop. Add to all this that Rumour had busily propa-
gated the report that his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught
was about to pay his maiden visit to Meath's broad pastures, a
report which the fathering wish no doubt assisted in spreading.
Another fine and rather brilliant day; and it will be easily under-
stood that a very numerous and fashionable assemblage was seen
mustering on the lawn of the Kilmessan parsonage, and other
pleasant rendezvous in the neighbourhood of Swainstown House,
between 10.30 and n a.m. There are parsons and parsons!
Some are monkish fanatics; others are engrossed by the detail and
minutiae, the black letter, the symbolism, the externals, be they
pompous or lowly, of their caste. Too much unleavened learning
exalts some above ordinary mortal fellowship; too little prompts
others to rush in where angels fear to tread. But commend me
to the parson who is not a whit the less a churchman or divine,
or a shining light to his circle, because he can enter into, and enjoy
in moderation, the amusements of his fellow-men — :who may not
hunt himself, though he knows all about it, but can greet with a
hearty, kind welcome pursuers who come in his way. It seemed
natural and de regie for most of the habitues of this hunt to turn

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 19

into Kilmessan Glebe. The hounds and staff knew their way
there, and somehow most hunters naturally turned in at the lodge
gate. The keen air made many who, like myself, had ridden
more than half a score of miles to the meet, pretty hungry, and
the esurient were not sent empty away. But the Duke (just now
there is only one in Ireland) was not at breakfast, and it soon
transpired that he was not to be seen in these latitudes to-day.
So Kilmessan village, that had pranked itself out in extra bravery
in honour of the occasion (the show of Galway red cloaks was
worthy of the poppy fields of India), was forced to content itself
with the cortege of the hunt, minus its own particular bright star of
loyal expectation !

Swainstown, Mr. Preston's park, did not hold to-day as it did
on the occasion of my last visit, so we trotted on to Kilcarty
Gorse, and the find there was so quick that those who loitered
to coffee-house, or exchange their hacks for hunters, had to gallop
very fast to make up lee way. The fox broke handsomely in a
north-westerly direction, giving the field a large, safe double for
their initial fence. He then inclined to the right, running very
fast over some large grass fields, till a short check let up the
tail men. Then the line took us to a road by Cortestown (Mr.
Wilkinson's neat residence), and from that point the hounds
hunted him, with very catchy scent, for about a mile and a half,
till we came to the Trim branch of the Meath line, which our fox
probably ran, and here we left him, the Boyne not being far off.
There was plenty of fencing in the line we had travelled, and
lots of leisure to look at our neighbours and the performances,
meritorious or otherwise, of their hunters. I saw a hard welter
weight get a very phenomenal sort of fall at a big up-bank, the horse
slipping up against one of the hounds, whom, however, he did not
seriously injure. A projecting bough of a tree hurled another
man, who was riding a very neat ci-devant chaser, out of his saddle.
Old Ironmould — who, if I recollect right, once made Marie Stuart
gallop her best at a finish — was jumping as if to the manner and

20 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

the country born; while a very neat thoroughbred grey, belonging,
I think, to Mr. Turbitt, of Dublin (a winner too), was fencing in
beautiful style. Mr. S. Garnett's Roscommon Grey, a new pur-
chase, showed very well in the field to-day — a master of weight,
with great jumping power; and so did a very hunting-like horse of
the same colour ridden by Miss Coleridge, of which I heard a very
high character. Mr. Brown was carried by a most masterful-
looking chestnut. Mr. Dunn is always seemingly well-mounted,
and the Hon. Captain Rowley's chestnut and Mr. Stewart's big
brown mare were good samples of their classes. But we have now
crossed the Meath line, and are in that beautifully green valley
bisected by the metals, the gentle acclivities of which are crowned
by Killeen and Dunsany Castles on one side, by Warrenstown and
Batterjohn on the opposite. A straight point-to-point fox chase
in such a wilderness of parks and demesnes is at this time of the
year not to be calculated on, but en revanche there was a fine show
of game, and from the road it was a perfect treat to view the
many-coloured packs streaming over the pastures between the
woodlands. One tod I saw killed; another run to ground. Of
the sequel in the afternoon I cannot speak with confidence.

The Kildare hounds spent their fore and afternoon of this date
in the Duke of Leinster's extensive woods at Carton, but without
much sport or good result.

The Ward Union hounds really met to-day at Ashbourne. Of
the feasting, carousing, hard riding, and sociality which a beauti-
ful day and pleasant surroundings encouraged, I must speak in a
future letter, having exceeded my limit.

P.S. — The opening meet of the Ward Union hounds on the 25th
was a most unequivocal success, judged by any test you please —
the size of the field, the vast gallery of critics and spectators, or
the quality of the sport, of which I can only send you a precis just
now, reserving details for another occasion. About 2.30 p.m., an
untried red stag was enlarged in the lands of Beltrasna, not very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 2.1

far from Ashbourne, and he was running in the direction of Kil-
brick, when a colley dog headed him, and thus spoilt a very
promising gallop ; for the stag, mindful of the deer-park and his
companions, turned back towards the place of his enlargement,
and after giving us a sharp mile or more in view, was secured
close by Fleenstown. A second red hind fared better than her
predecessor, for she led her pursuers a rare dance "by Kilrue,
Balfestown, the Fairy House raceourse, towards Caulstoun, and so
on into darkness and temporary liberty. There was tremendous
grief, and two valuable hunters succumbed to the pace, distance,
and recurring obstacles.

The opening scenes of fox-hunting in Louth were equally bril-
liant and successful.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

III.

" Make me feel the wild pulsation I have often felt before,
When my horse went on before me, and my hack was at the door."

Opening day with "the Wards"— With the Louth hounds— The Flat House-
West Meath, etc.

THOSE readers of The Field who followed " Triviator's " records
of the fleeting chase in Ireland last season will recollect that the
Ward Union opening meet was like that of the witches on the
blasted heath — in thunder, lightning, and in rain. The two
former may be poetic licenses; the latter was a most prosaic
force, of such huge antagonistic power that it quite vetoed all
chance of hunting in safety or comfort in these flooded tracts ;
so that a hunting council convened at Ashbourne (aye, even
credite posteri, after much solid and fluid refreshment had been
snugly concealed and stowed away about the persons of these
same friends in council) decided that hunting the stag must be
postponed that day. So we returned, well fed, indeed, and well
cared for in every way, but minus the object of our visit to
Ashbourne. For three subsequent days, if my memory serves
me, did the Hyades, the Pleiades, and all the patrons and
patronesses of the watery element who had ever been translated
to the galaxy above by the pantheistic Ovid, fight in their courses
against stag-hunting. A week ago, and it seemed odds on a
recurrence of a similar rainy experience. The brimming rivers

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 23

were flooding their callow lands everywhere, and there appeared
no pause or intermission of the downpour. Since Saturday,
however, the weather has worn quite another aspect. Sat prata
biberunt was the edict, and the refreshed pastures of Meath and
Dublin never shone in a richer lustre of green ; nature, in the
perfect hush and lull which succeeded the fierce rain tempests,
never wore a lovelier aspect. The air was balmy, and the poet's
or poetaster's couplet,

" If thou wouldst see green Erin aright,
View it in autumn's mellow light ; "

was never better realised by tourists and visitors to our many
points of interest and natural beauty. The corn has been almost
universally carried, the hay ricked long ago. The fine week
came most opportunely for the potato harvest, as that critical
and delicate tuber — for which no national substitute has ever
been discovered — has shown some symptoms of premature decay
already, and it is of vital importance that the many thousands
of tons now being dug and pitted through the length and breadth
of the land, should be put together as dry and safely as possible.
Sat prata biberunt! Nationally and insularly, we may be very
thankful for our harvest prospects and realities. The pants is
tolerably safe and abundant ; the circenses begin everywhere.

" Uprise ye, then, my merry, merry men,
This is our opening day. "

Scant need is there to din the refrain into Dublin ears, as
the opening of the kennel and deer-park doors at Ashbourne
for the season is a very great function in that sporting metropolis,
and politics and polemics are temporarily absorbed in its en-
grossing vortex. Coaches, civil and military, are converging
towards the northern road, well freighted with hunting men and
women. Led horses have preceded them by an hour, while
on-lookers have had an opportunity of contrasting the neat, well-
bred, well-fed, well-groomed, lumberless hunter of the century

24 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

with that gaudy equine monstrosity of the worst Flemish type
which victorious William bestrides in " College Green," remind-
ing me far more of a Roman imperator than of a hard-fighting
Dutch prince.

"On horseback Nero mounted, crown 'd with bays,"

occurs to me as I pass this curious caperer in mid air. The
road to the kennels is as dreary, monotonous a stretch as even
Northern Germany can produce (which is handicapping it un-
commonly high), and the ten long Irish miles seem to par-
take somewhat of the German standard. Ashbourne itself —
I speak it with all respect to its constituted authorities — is as
" one-horse, tin-pot a city," to use the Yankee idiom, as need be
desired ; but the huntsman's establishment (Charles Brindley's),
which combines more or less club-house, reception rooms, private
residence, deer-park, kennels, and stables, is to the hunting eye
the redeeming and interesting feature of the village. With many
who entered long ago to stag — peradventure when soldiering in
Ireland, or aiding the republic by their counsel and statecraft
(by republic I mean the public weal, for we are monarchical of
the monarchical here) — but whose lives are no longer cast in such
pleasant hunting scenes as Dublin presents,

" Memory will stoop to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place —
The whitewash'd wall, the neatly sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that stood behind the door. "

This is not exactly a photograph; but few, I ween, will forget
the solid comforts and civilities they have met at Ashbourne and
its well-ordered interior. To-day it was really en ftte. A fore-
noon so still, warm, and beautiful, that a thunder shower seemed
the only thing to fear, had tempted an enormous section of
Dublin to make a day of it with the staghounds, and thither
they flocked in hundreds, if not thousands, in cars, carriages,
and a medley of wheels not unworthy of Epsom Downs ; the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 25

distance from either metropolis not being wholly dissimilar. Here
is the " Sans Souci " drag, enormously loaded — a most workman-
like affair, and as effective as ornamental, for it is seemingly
ubiquitous ; three or four regimental coaches follow or lead it.
Here are a train or two of polo carts drawn by miniature hunters ;
a capital tandem of well-broken horses follows; then a perfect
procession of "side" cars, and a few buggies, gigs, carts, etc.,
among whom Mr. Allen, the well-known V.S., drives decidedly
the smartest stepper in a very neat blue roan mare. The Garrison
sends a small squadron, recruited chiefly from the Inniskillings
and 3rd Dragoon Guards, the latter regiment still in mourning
for that promising young officer, Lieutenant Lees, who was recently
killed in the Phoenix Park by his horse falling over timber. Captain
Kearney, Messrs. Trotter, Kearsley, etc., represent Meath well
and truly in good mounts. Dublin has, of course, turned out
in force, and the Ward Union men (proper) show a few very
nice- hunters in their division — none, however, better or truer
shaped than a dark brown stalliony sort of hunter that carried
Mr. Leonard Morrogh, for, I fancy, the first time this season. But
the play is about to begin.

Let us leave the lively array of driving people, and turn up the
Binding lane. Now jump a small bank and ditch, and you will
find yourself among wide grassy fields, a unit in a very large body
of riders, for the most part very hard; but we cannot pause to
survey them now. The watches tell us that the red stag (not a
notorions public performer) has had his full law. Charlie Brind-
ley and his son, gorgeous in new unstained pinks (as erst her
Majesty's mail guards on May-day), are laying on the dappled
pack, and their music, as the bouquet de cerf catches their spreading
nostrils, tells us, with all the force of dog eloquence, that every
second must now be utilised. The stag has treated the field
kindly; for the first three or four impediments are small water
jumps — nothing to the trained hunter, though even to them objec-
tions are made by sundry recalcitrant over-fresh or nervous steeds;

26 HIBERN1A VENA TIC A.

but one ditch, about the fourth or fifth, causes grief in the array,
and a grey horse seems to require the aid of a crowd to extract
him out of a gripe. A loose horse or two now prance about
in much delight, as if they knew by instinct that men in tops and
leather are but poor runners. The line seems to lead on towards
Priestown and Kilbride. Presently, however, our stag turns sharp
back (a colley dog has done this), and for about a mile or two is
hunted in view over a beautiful bit of country, till at Fleenstown
he is secured, more or less uninjured. The day was very trying
to condition. I think the deer felt it, and so did all hounds and
horses who were not in tiptop order, as the atmosphere was almost
unseasonably warm and balmy, and of wind there was none.
Flasks are now emptied. Those who can draw upon large studs
get on second horses (one envies Captain O'Neal, who can send
home Jonah, and mount another perhaps as perfect), and away
pricks a much diminished procession to hunt a second deer while
the day still vouchsafes an hour's more light. She proved equal
to her reputation of last year, did this red hind, Lady Domville ;
for, enlarged by Killegland, with only a minute's start, she simply
ran her foes out of time and out of light, and secured her liberty
for the present at least. Mr. Trotter lost a valuable hunter in this
run, and Mr. Allan M'Donough was equally unfortunate. The
line by Caulstoun, the Fairy House, etc., was superb ; the going
very good.

It is the fashion to complain of the want of feathered game in
Ireland, and the complaint has much truth in it, as those know
full well who have toiled weary leagues and jumped ditches
innumerable, and have not met ten head of such game all day
long in their peregrinations, and these too wild to give the gunner
a chance. Where there is real preservation game accumulates in
Ireland; witness this fact, that in four days five guns shot 135
brace of partridges ten days ago at Creggs, in Galway, on grass
farms for the most part, and not entering a single turnip field in
their travels ! Every foxhunter knows that the magpie is a certain

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 27

rtncontre on his way to a meet, sometimes in pairs, sometimes
in flocks. If superstitious, he may make auguries from their flight
and numbers; but these birds are of comparatively recent introduc-
tion into Ireland, and the way they increase and multiply is mar-
vellous. Superstition hedges them round with a sort of reverence ;
so, as a rule, they are not trapped or shot, or minished in any
way, and they indulge their nice, taste in game eggs to the utter
ruin of the game supply of the island.

The Louth hounds press hard on their neighbours of Meath in
their zeal and forwardness in the fox campaign, for they began
their regular season on the 24th inst., at Castle Bellingham; and
if the Latin proverb about a good beginning — or, in fact, a begin-
ning at all — be apposite to hunting, these hounds have already
grasped success for the year forthcoming. Just as they were draw-
ing for their first fox, "the animal" emerged from a hedgerow with
his head turned for Dromina, the pack on good terms with him ;
thence he made his way to Dromisken, turned to the right, and
got to ground at Sea Bank, on the fringe of the Channel — a very
sharp burst of twelve minutes. The next move was to Braggans-
town, which, as usual, literally swarmed with foxes, and it was a
piece of rare luck that there was no division, but that the pack
unanimously settled to one, who rang back by Drumcashel, then
made for Baron and Derrycarna to Corballis, where he crossed the
river, gained Irishtown and Gadderstown Gorse, but, unable to
stay there, made a supreme effort to reach Ardee House covert,
in which effort he broke down, and was rolled over by the Red
House Gate, after a chase of ih. i5min., of which the greater
part was capital for riders — all a most meritorious performance
of the pack. Few opening chapters in hunting chronicles will
contain a brighter record than this, from the Land's End to the
last point of Caledonian hunting enterprise (and it does require
enterprise to organise fox-hunting in such uninviting soil and sur-
roundings). Apropos of the advantages that hunting men and
hunting horses enjoy in Ireland, let me record the somewhat preg-

28 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

nant fact that in rather more than a week's hunting I can only
recollect having crossed two minute plough patches — one cropped
with potatoes, the other with turnips. Think of this, ye heavy
pursuers who toil painfully through hock-deep plough — aye, in the
heart of the Shires — till it requires the courage and resolution of a
Murat or Osbaldeston to put your hunter at yon stiff post-and-
rails, with six to four on a fall, scramble, or what the Yankees call a
"declension," Anglic^ a refusal. There is some difference between
going on the top of the ground and through it. Horses know it,
hunting men know it, valets know it; last, but not least, your
cheque-book knows it, especially in the post-Christmas months.

On Friday the hunting programme for those living near the
metropolis consisted of a meet with Mr. Maxwell's harriers at
Queenstown, and for early risers the Meath hounds at Philpots-
town. I can myself only testify to an exceptionally pleasant bye
afternoon with Mr. George Brooke's i8in. and i9in. harriers,
models of symmetry, who utterly astonished me by their capacity
for driving at great pace, and their ability to compass the very
large barriers which divide pasture farms anywhere near Dublin.
Mr. Maxwell's harriers had, I hear, only a moderate fifteen minutes,
which was rather a strong contrast to their last appearance in pub-
lic; but the Meath hounds had so satisfactory and satisfying a day
that the pack went back to kennel somewhere about two o'clock
p.m. — the best evidence in the world that all the actors in the fox
drama, (the victims alone excepted) were thoroughly pleased with
the performance. They met at Philpotstown, and, finding at once
there, rattled their fox towards Rathmore for about thirty minutes,
when he crawled into some outbuildings, and, as the pack do not
crave blood, he was not persecuted to the death. The second
draw was Meadstown, from whence they drove a fox handsomely
into the open towards Philpotstown, and rolled him over in about
half an hour — thirty-five minutes actually, if one must be accurate.

On Saturday the Ward Union meeting point was Kilrue, and
his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, with a large party,

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 29

attended the trysting place. The day, warm and still, bordered
on fogdom, and I have no doubt the same combinations of ex-
halations which made a haze here would have created a dense
" London particular " on the banks of Father Thames. A trot of
a mile or so brought the cortege to the wide grass lands of Bally-
hack, where a very slight undulation gives an extensive view
over the surrounding pastures. Here a red hind, known as
Lady Langford — from, I think, the fine gallop she gave last
year to that nobleman's park — was enlarged, when she went
away tolerably straight, then inclined a bit to the left, and
wended her way by Ratoath village, leaving Sutherland to the
left, and with Garrison Hill for her beacon and landmark in
front. Scent was anything but good, and though the hounds
hunted steadily and well, they had no driving energy to-day ;
so Milady of Langford — whether headed or not on her track I
cannot aver — presently retraced her course to Ratoath, passed
by Mr. Corballis's house, and pointed towards the Fairy House,
with its skeleton array of stands, which loomed very large in
their emptiness. Whether a very long, dragging, unexciting
chase — if chase it can be fairly called — ended in a capture or
not, I cannot say, seeing I joined the homeward-bound fleet.
There was a great deal of big jumping, and one or two "main
drains," almost wide enough for a steam launch, were crossed
by a select few. The Duke of Connaught seemed to revel in
big jumping, and was admirably carried by his dark brown
hunter, who, if not already named, might be appropriately called
" Chancellor," as this son of The Lawyer has already attained
the highest eminence among the sons of law and lawyers.

On Monday the Ward Union Hunt rendezvoused at the
Flat House, not very far from Dunboyne, and, consequently,
about a dozen of English miles from Dublin. The Flat House
is not so called because it crowns a hilly country, on the lucus
a non principle; its nomenclature is perfectly apposite to the
locality, which is a sort of pasture field, only — unfortunately for

3o HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

many — a pasture field with a large number of natural and
artificial subdivisions, in which it is quite possible for man and
horse to lie perdu for ever so long, unless the rescuer be at
hand. The very levelness of the country involves several feet
of extra depth in the ditches to carry off the superficial water,
not to speak of the necessary strength and size of fences in
all countries depastured by bullocks. The meet was not a large
one by any means, or comparable to Saturday's ; but a glance
at men and horses told at once that riding was the ruling motive
of the day and hour, not coffee-housing, pic-nicking, or the
various causes and impulses which swell a meet of fox-hounds
in a favourite neighbourhood. Several of the horses had per-
formed in public ; several would probably do so again next
spring and summer; while the field contained not a few gentle-
men jocks whose names are not unfamiliar in chasing circles here
and on the far side of the Channel.

A mile or two brought us to the starting point, and in the
first field it was quite evident, whatever be the proper term for
the odora vis of deer, that rose — call it by any name you please
— was shedding a perfume most enjoyable and titillating to the
nostrils of the big dog pack, who travelled along most merrily
and musically. The first two or three fences were nice open
rhenes, which, however, let in a quota of the field. At first
the line seemed to incline to the left of Porterstown ; but
those who, like myself and a few more, rode wide here,
were presently wholly out of it, as the deer's course was
under the old Fairy House Cottage, and thence round towards
Ratoath, where pursuit ended in capture. A fresh deer was
enlarged about a couple of hundred yards to the left of the
Fairy House Grand Stand, with the brook of the same name
immediately in front. It struck me that the quarry had been
handicapped rather rigidly as to time; at any rate, for a couple
of miles the pace was most enlivening — and the fencing, though
very sound and fair for a horse that threw his heart over well to

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 31

the far side, was certainly of wider proportions than one often
meets in any hunting country. Grief did abound, certainly,
though I do not think there was a single bad accident ; but the
line leads us on through Harborstown, across a bye-road, into
which there was some grief, and so on across the metals towards
Baytown Park, where I must leave them still running. A red
coat and a grey jacket got a strong lead after jumping the first
fence ; and, as their hunters crossed the large obstacles in their
path without pause, dwell, or turn, they were not likely to be
deprived of their pride of place, and certainly were not so far as
my vision carried me.

To return to Meath and its hunting annals. I must hark
back to an unnoticed but very good day last Thursday, when Drews-
town supplied them with a capital straight-going fox, who ran by
Kilskyre, then, heading for the right, made Clonabraney — Mr.
Wade's fine park — where, owing to the severe illness of the owner,
the hounds were stopped. The second fox emerged from Sylvan
Park, ran by Balrath, and was killed in a pond near the town of
Kells, after some beautiful hunting.

Friday, the 27th, I have already alluded to; but I have not
recorded that the grief was in proportion to the brilliancy of the
sport, for which a river and a huge double on the way to Meads-
town are mainly responsible, as I am informed. Goodall, Mr.
Trotter, and an English visitor, Mr. Stratford, were first in the run
all through, I hear, the latter riding Mr. Montgomery's well-known
chestnut.

On Saturday they met at Crossdrum, and had a very enjoyable
thirty-two minutes from Beltrasna, killing in the open between
Armagh and Sallymount. From the bog covert of the latter place
they had a long hunting run of one hour and forty minutes to
ground.

Louth continues as it began. On the 26th Mr. Filgate was at
Townley Hall, and killed an old dog fox there after an hour's
woodland hunting. He then rattled the foxes at Mellifont and

32 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Macey's Glen, marking one of the latter to ground. On the 28th
they were at the Mills of Louth ; found at Drumgowra Gorse,
rattled their fox over Tully, Feraghs, and the river, on through
Knockhably, where they killed, after a capital seventeen minutes.
Another was then marked to ground, and, after one hour and fifty-
five minutes, a very ringing fox from Knockhably Gorse was
broken up.

The meeting of the Kildare hounds at Johnstown Inn — for the
first time this season — on Tuesday, the 3ist ult, was a very fine
piece of hunting pageantry ; and, taking numbers, scenery, and
accessories into account, it is probably almost unrivalled in the
three kingdoms — certainly nothing in Ireland can approach it.
The day was lovely in the extreme, though hardly suggestive of
strong scent. The loyal hope of meeting his Royal Highness the
Duke of Connaught, who is on a visit to the Duke of Leinster at
Carton just now, no doubt added a certain proportion of fair faces
in fair frames to the cortege; but this attraction apart, given a
moderately inviting forenoon, you may bet six to four any day on
an immense gathering in the High-street of Johnstown on the
opening festa of Kildare foxhunting. Drives and rides through
miles of park, glimpses of the hunted fox every now and then,
a little jumping in and out of roads — what conditions could be
more perfect for the enormous gallery of on-lookers ? Kerdiffstown
and Palmerstown appeared full of foxes ; from Bishopscourt Stick
Covert some three at least were expelled. The former were well
rattled through their familiar fields and plantations ; of the latter,
one was forced out of his native haunts into the neighbouring
woods of Palmerstown, but an accident prevented my learning his
fate. I forgot to chronicle a nice cubbing run which this pack
had ten days ago from the Hill of Allen Gorse to the Curragh.
The Newbridge harriers found an outlier the same afternoon, and
had a wonderfully straight gallop with him.

P.S. — The 3ist of October — a day to be much remembered

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 33

by Irish foxhood — was also the opening day in Western Meath,
when game proved abundant, and the woods round Lake Belvi-
dere echoed hound music for hours. In Meath the day was
memorable for a hunting run from Walsh's Gorse, which nearly
gave Goodall his quietus — wire and blindness are our natural and
unnatural enemies at this season; and a second pursuit of an
hour and a quarter from Slater's Gorse, of which the first thirty-
five minutes could hardly be surpassed for pace. In Lismullen
(Sir J. Dillon's park) some five foxes turned up, but the conclusion
was unequal to its first impetus. The Ward Union hounds
hunted a brace of deer near the Black Bull on the ist, but neither
proved very good.

34 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

IV.

' The cry is — Still they come ! '

Kildare's opening day — Pageant at Johnstown inn and village — Allenstown —
Lord Darnley — Scariff Bridge — Cork and Lord Fermoy — Galway and
Mr. Burton Persse — Maynooth — Mr. H. Slubber and Colonel Chaplin.

"Suoni la Tromba intrepido ! " No longer let the merry hunter's
horn far over the wooded hills be borne j let his clarion now peal
forth through broad woodland, over dale and vale, coppice and
gorse, for the revolving months have brought us to the threshold of
November's calends. The sun, say the astronomers, is about to
enter the sign of Sagittarius, and we are about to enter on the war
path and don the war paint once more. What says the poet?

" Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu,
Nee venenatis gravida sagittis,
Fusee, pharetrS. ; "

which, freely translated, may run somehow thus :

" The man of pure and blameless life,
He need not arm, like Moor, for strife,
Nor seek the darts with poison rife."

Thank Heaven, we may leave battles to the Turkish hordes, and
shed the blood of Scio's vine (preferring, of course, Bordeaux, save
in poetry), grateful indeed that our battles are but the mimic
forays of our chivalry on the invaders of our hen roosts — that our

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 35

great games are but war's image : a preparation 'tis true, if we are
to harken to Pliny, for fiercer contests, if such be our fate; for, says
that wise ancient, those who were designed for great captains were
first taught to contest with the swiftest wild beasts in speed, with
the boldest in strength, with the most cunning in craft and
subtlety. " Cedant arma toga" Let partridge and grouse pack in
peace; let pheasant rustle and challenge in woods and hedgerows
unharmed ; be motley now our only wear. Let us fall back on
pristine custom and costume in casing our lower and middle man
in the skins of wild beasts. But let them be well tanned and
white as the driven snow, and let our livery be the national red;
for the analogy of war's image must be complete, the properties
en rtgle. And here I am reminded of a happy repartee made to
the late Viceroy of India, the Earl of Mayo, by one of his tenants
or tenants' sons, who, in the fanaticism of hunting enthusiasm, had
walked or trotted over from a distant part of Meath to see the
opening meet of the Kildare hounds, when his lordship presided
over their destinies, and the kennels were at Palmerstown. "Why,
Mick," said his lordship, when he had learned that the sight of the
hounds was the sole motive for a journey of nearly fifty English
miles, "you must be mad." "Ah! well, well, me lord; shure,
if we were all out-and-out sane, there'd be little fox-hunting going!"
How witty ! How wise ! How epigrammatic ! But, laying aside
generalities and ana, however apposite, we may now remark, in
the terse language of Mr. Pigg, " that the tambourine is a rowling "
all over Ireland — that the campaign has been opened everywhere.
Let us hope that foxes have, for their own sakes, been duly har-
ried; that masters have explored their wide demesnes, and, like
the youth in Comus,

" Know each lane and every alley green,
Dingle and bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourne from side to side,"

in every part of their dominions ; that the same cordial kindliness
cements all classes concerned in the fox drama, as it has been

3 6 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

wont in this our beautiful island; and that fox-hunting may be
regarded as a great national institution, instead of a vexatious
"coruk" imposed by one set of men on another.

In Ireland — though very dramatic in action, thought, and
speech — we are not generally theatrically mad, like our friends in
France, when a premier representation must be seen coute qui
coute. We reserve such fervour for the opening scenes of the fox
drama. Witness Johnstown inn and Johnstown village on the 3ist
of October ! I suppose the levee of a popular viceroy in Ireland
and the Castle pageant is the finest parade of Ireland's aristoi in
Church and State to be witnessed; but what is that to the levee
and drawing-room combined in the ante-chamber, so to speak, of
Monsieur Renard? What can upholstery do to rival the poly-
chrome setting of the glorious woods, with the blending tints of
ruddy beech, red gold chestnut, yellow larch, and sycamore,
contrasted by the varying greens of ivy, holly, yew, and sombre-
hued pines, and the cold shimmer of aspen and willow, all lit up
into splendour by an unclouded sun? From 10.30 carriages of
all sorts and shapes were pouring into the village from Naas on
one side and Dublin on the other. These were the main portals,
but there were side entrances likewise. By eleven o'clock the
main street was so full that the then arriving coachmen had to
content themselves with outside gallery places. All space near
the cynosure — -the hounds and staff — was taken up; indeed, it was
no easy thing for a horseman on the quietest and handiest of
hacks to thread his way through the densely packed array and
exchange greetings in the market place with old friends and com-
panions, drawn together, it may be, from the four corners of the
world "known to moderns" by the magic and magnetism of fox-
hunting. Place aux dames, and les grande dames of course. The
Marchioness of Drogheda never misses an opening meet of these
hounds, save for grave reasons, neither does the Hon. Mrs. Forbes.
Here are the Lady Annettee La Touche and party, the Ladies
Fitzgerald, and the Hon. Mrs. Barton on the most charming of

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 37

grey chargers, Mrs. Moore, of Killashee, Mrs. Adare, Mrs. Lang-
rishe, Mrs. Kennedy, Miss Kilbee, Miss O'Hanlon, on a beautiful
chestnut mare, and hosts more.

The Upper House was well represented by Lords Cloncurry,
Drogheda, Clanmorris, &c.; the staff by General Seymour and
Captain Lee; the household by Colonel Forster on Greek Fire.
The yth Dragoon Guards sent a coach-load under charge of
Major Wheble, and there are some very smart-looking hunters
in the regiment, evidently. The Inniskillings were in strong
force ; so I am sure would have been the 3rd Dragoon Guards,
but that some grave military necessity interfered (I hope no
sinister veering of the war vane). Horse Artillery from New-
bridge, led by Mr. Knox, on a chaser of course, and with a new
sort of leather saddle cloth or nummer — his own invention, I
think, which contained such necessary appliances as a spare shoe,
&c., very neat and workmanlike. The 4th sent Colonel Bray and
some Arabs, of which I should like to have Captain R. Upton's
opinion. The 75th sent Captain Beresford and others. Of
the Ashantee campaign we are reminded by the Hon. Major
Wood and the Hon. Captain Scott. Sir James Power, Bart,
brought a drag-load from Dublin, and so, I think, did Mr.
O'Reilly. The Ward Union men were very strongly represented,
with Mr. Leonard Morrogh, as usual, beautifully mounted. In
fact, I believe there were actually seven coaches all loaded, at the
meet. The larger country houses near the scene, such as Straffan
and Killashee, had evidently tested their power of expansion to
the utmost limits. Roseboro, the Hon. Charles Bourke's bijou
hunting box near the village, was bright with scarlet riders (if not
runners). Masters and ex-masters jostled against each other in
the crowd, which, if mainly insular, was composed of elements
from all parts of the island. Verily, if Mr. Edmund Mansfield
had been taking a theatrical benefit, he could not have craved a
more bumper-like house. The exchequer must have made huge
progress to-day (nearly 300 half-crowns were paid in); and, if

38 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Kildare and her fixtures grow so deeply into the popular heart, I
shall not be surprised to see a party of Cook's excursionists sent
over under that gallant commander and Corvphoeus to "do"
Ireland in ten days, including a fox hunt in Kildare with property
horses chartered from a circus (cobbler's wax and courage, be it
Dutch or native, to be found by the excursionist himself).

But while we are taking a rapid survey of the dramatis persona;
while we are rejoicing in seeing such veteran sportsmen as Mr.
Horace Rochfort, Captain Wakefield, Sir James Higginson, and
others on their favourite hunters in their favourite hunting grounds,
we cannot shut our eyes to the gaps that the mighty hunter Time
has made in our wonted array. The Squire of Castletown, whose
cheery cordial manner ever won the hearts of his associates,
whether as master or acting master of the Christchurch Drag, in the
Senate, in the tumult of a beaten and demoralised army (Lee's),
or at the covert side near home, has gone from us to return no
more. Mr. A. Love, whose broad back made so capital a beacon
for men less well mounted or less capable, is unable to ride this
season, owing to severe illness. Mr. W. Lynch, who was oftener
seen in western and eastern Meath than in Kildare, died recently,
to the grief of all good sportsmen. The strong Indian current
tempts others away; among them Lord Kilmaine, so often seen in
the van of Kildare pursuit. I forget whether it is the centripetal
or centrifugal force which draws inwards (my scientific education
having been neglected, and "Joyce's Dialogues" not being within
reach) ; but if one force sent away some wonted sportsmen to more
ambitious hunting fields, another proved even stronger in drawing
men to the programme which Kildare and her caterers had pro-
vided for the day and the season. Sir Erasmus Borrowes, who has
been an absentee for some time, was at the tryst, mounted on a
fine lengthy bay horse, that, if my memory deceives me not, is a
half brother of Caramel, who was bred within a field or two of the
day's draw. Captain St. Leger Moore, forsaking his wonted pastimes
of tent-pegging, lemon slicing, and all those Indian feats of horse-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 39

manship for which his regiment is so celebrated, has returned for
a season in Kildare, though few would have appeared after such a
shaking and marking fall as he sustained yesterday: His brother,
Mr. Stephen Moore, is also in the field ; but time and space would
fail me, were I to attempt anything like a catalogue raisonne of
even half the sportsmen and sportswomen out, and will only add
two names, as they represent men well known in wider circles
than Kildare — Mr. Allan M'Donough, who was among the most
successful gentleman riders of his day, and Mr. Thomas Beasley,
who certainly enjoys that distinction at present, so far as Irish
courses are concerned. But the vast aggregation has been stirred
into motion by the mot d'ordre passed on to Will Freeman and
his acolytes. History is repeating itself, and we are cantering over
the turf of Kerdiffstown Park, while innumerable wheels are grind-
ing the front of the avenue. Presently, the house passed, we are
drawn up in a sort of space in a large grass pasture, separated
from the good gorse to our left front by only a few hundred yards.
As usual, there are some false starts. At last the " gone away ! " is
a reality; the fox has started in the direction of Tipper, and in five
minutes we are confronted by a very large bank and brook, too
large for ordinary men and ordinary hunters. The hard riders
pause. " Tommy, make room for your uncle," would perhaps have
been heard if the scene were nearer Cockneydom; and I'm quite
sure the adjured would have accommodated their relatives. At
last a weaker spot — two weaker spots, appear; fifty pairs of hind
shoes are in the air nearly simultaneously. A Ward Union man
was, I think, the first over; and soon after him was a well-known
welter weight on a grey, whose good judgment was often invoked
in selecting hunters for the Empress of Austria; in a field or two
a loose horse was no novelty; but just as things were getting a bit
animating our fox turned sharp back to Kerdiffstown, treated us
to one final very large jump off a bank into water (for it was too
broad to cover), and then succeeded a couple of hours of covert
hunting through Kerdiffstown and Palmerstown Parks, varying

4o :HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

with the scenting power of the day— never very high. This over,
we trotted on through Kill village to Bishopscourt, where the Earl
of Clonmell — an absentee to-day— has made a new stick covert to
do duty till his gorse, recently cut down, attains its full growth.
The field, posted at very respectful distance from the drawing
party, presently see two young foxes racing away through the park,
their heads pointed for Oughterard Hill; while others have seen
an old fox stealing off towards Johnstown Kennedy. The hounds
were put on to the young ones, and, after some driving round the
skirting plantations, one was forced out towards Baron Rath, raced
across the wide galloping fields which separate Bishopscourt from
Palmerstown, and, after some time, immolated, for the huntsman
must have a mask, pads, and brush on his opening day; and with
this closes the history of the acta of the Kildare hounds on the
3ist of October; memorable, not for any very high-class sport, but
for the largest and most brilliant meet which has perhaps ever been
seen in Ireland — a good augury for the coming season.

Turning to Meath and its pack, last Thursday witnessed a
much smaller assemblage and array opposite the substantial old
mansion of Allenstown, the residence of Mr. N. Waller, the
popular master of these hounds — whence many generations of
Wallers have gone forth to do'good service to Queen and country,
in Church and State, and where hounds and horses have always
filled stables and kennels, be the quarry of the time and fashion
hare, stag, or fox. There is quite a sea of verdure all round,
for the grass land is of Meath's richest quality (letting for £6
an acre) ; and old trees, well furnished and of goodly girth and
proportions, tell their tale of long, peaceful, and undisturbed
proprietorship. The early risers had seen the whole landscape
white with rime, but by 1 1 a.m. of the clock all signs of Jack
Frost's handiwork had vanished. A warm sun had done his
spiriting quickly and well; the air was still and calm, and
if the accepted theories about scent did not bespeak us very
lively pursuit, the day in itself was enjoyable in the extreme,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 41

everything looking its very best; and, if the year was evi-
dently dying, it was fading in extreme beauty, with all the iris
hues of the dying dolphin reflected around. Time forbids an
enumeration of the rank, fashion, and beauty whom the day's
loveliness and the pleasantly inviting scenery had drawn
from even distant homes, but among the ladies in front of
the hall door were Lady Headfort and the Ladies Taylor,
Mrs. Garnet and Miss Howard, Miss Waller, Miss Tisdale, Mrs.
Mortimer, Mrs. Dunville and party ;• while among the men were
Mr. Ratcliffe, the oldest member of the hunt (his age is pa-
triarchal, his appearance the reverse), and Master Wilson-Patten,
probably the youngest follower of the pack. Captain Roden was
here too, from whom, I believe, Lord Wolverton purchased his
famous musicians.

After trying some woods near the house in vain, we moved
to the hill of Faughan, a grassy knoll, whose wooded top is,
bisected by a very wide grassy ride. It is a hill only, or rather a
hillock, but as the one-eyed man is great and king-like among
the blind, so this hill surveys no less than thirteen counties, so
level and low-lying are the surrounding grassy plains. I tell
the tale as 'twas told to me, for a kind of haze prevented any^
thing like an extensive view to-day. A gorse covert lies at its
base, and from it a fox emerged at once. For some distance
the bitches could hardly own their quarry, though he was close
before them, but presently came a crash of melody, and then,
heads up, sterns down, they raced down the acclivity, and fairly
drove him past Allenstown House, by the Laurel Woods, on
past Charlesfort Park (here the hounds divided for a short time
on a fresh fox) to Moyagher, when he turned back through
Charlesfort, made some loops and rings between this place and
the Kells Railway, scent being very low at times. He was then
taken past Faughan Hill to Martry, and in the very act of
jumping out of an old cemetery there, he was pulled down in
the surrounding ditch, after a pursuit of zhrs. imin., of which

42 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

the first part was at express pace. We next visited an osier bed
by the banks of the Blackwater (Mr. Barnewell's covert, I be-
lieve), and from the parallel road we saw the pack run their fox
for about a mile, and turn him up handsomely near Bloomsbury.

Rathmore was the bonne bouche of the day, much longed
for by the hard-riding division, who, headed by Captain Trotter
on a wonderfully clever grey from Limerick, had been showing
us to demonstration that a right line is the shortest way of
connecting two points, no matter whether timber, rhene, or
frowning bank intervene, and thither we trotted off incontinent,
as the day and light were already on the wane. It is a very
strong gorse, surrounded by plantations and flanked by a ruined
tower and a ruined church of much architectural beauty, which
are both full of interesting memorials and traditions of the Cruise
and Plunket family, once lords of the soil. For the last two
centuries or more the broad lands round the big Rath have
been owned by the Earls of Darnley, whose present representa-
tive has done as much for fox-hunting in Meath as any single
proprietor throughout its wide extent. A quick find resulted
from the throwing of the pack in, three or four foxes on foot,
and some trouble in making one break bounds. At last he
leaves his stronghold, head set for Allenstown ; but, frightened by
road people near the village chapel, he hies back to the gorse, and
is again extruded. Again we are galloping towards Allenstown
merrily (some three or four miles distant) when a flock of sheep
spoilt scent, and though the line was recovered it was too late
to hunt.

Copious rain fell during the night, and was falling fast as
we drove westwards to Scariff Bridge, the fixture for these hounds
on the following day, and some ten or twelve miles distant
from yesterday's theatre of events. Scariff Bridge is near nothing
particular, being an old-fashioned bridge over the river Boyne.
The country round is flat, poor, and uninteresting, the fences
look like many falls, and on several sides are bits of that bete

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 43

tooir of Irish hunting — bog. A large field was not expected,
but, the downpour notwithstanding, there was a very fair muster
of hunting men and one solitary hunting woman to the fore.
The array included the lord of the manor, Lord Darnley,
mounted on a clever-looking, capable, bay horse; the master,
Mr. Waller, Colonel Fraser, V.C., Lord Langford, and the Hon.
Captain Rowley, both on very high-class hunters, a grey and
brown ; the Earl of Howth, on a lengthy son of Eidolon, and
grandson of the Flying Dutchman; Mr. Sam Reynell, Messrs.
Trotter, Kearsley, Kearney, Montgomery, Dunville, Cuppage,
Purdon, Handley, Alley, etc. Much Wood, which for two miles
or so slopes down to the Boyne, was our first try. It held a
fox, whom we bustled about, but could do nothing with. The
next, after trotting through a village called Ballivor, was a wild
gorse heath flanked by bog, which, I heard, was called Corney
Cavan, or some such name, and which an old native seemed
much astonished at my never having seen before, as if the climax
of life was to see this fox haunt (see Naples and die !). It held
not to-day; but, after jumping a big bog drain, which furnished
"stain" for a saddle or two, we found a real good fox in one
of the Elm Grove plantations, who ran by the edge of the gorse
proper without a moment's dwell, broke through some planta-
tions, and, after taking us over some rather swampy lands not
without checks, he led us by the Earl's Mills into Much Wood,
where, having sixteen or seventeen miles to ride home, I left
him. I hear Mr. Brown, the owner of Elm Grove, is one of
the staunchest preservers of foxes in his district, and that he
has given the hunt a covert or two. His hospitality to hungry
hunting men has become proverbial, and such "proverbial phi-
losophy " in a hunting country finds more votaries than Tupper's.
Meanwhile, the United Hunt in Cork have not been idle.
Their opening day was on the 3oth of October, and a brilliantly-
mounted assembly did it honour, including Lord Fermoy, on his
well-known hunter Balyroberts. Dundellerick was the meeting-

44 .HIBERNIA VENATICA.

place, and a fox was unfortunately chopped in covert here.
Bolton's, the next draw, furnished a number of foxes, of which
one was killed after a very enjoyable ring of four miles or so.
Harry Saunders, the new huntsman (vice Mason), seems liked
generally, and altogether the horizon of hunting here is flushed
with the rosiest tints. Rumour some time ago assigned the
future mastership of this fine pack to a popular heavy-weight,
whose lines are cast in a northern province, but I don't know
if there were any foundation for the on dit.

Was it not Byron who talked about the feebleness of words
to express the might, the majesty of loveliness? If he found
it hard, how impossible to the polloi I Those who would see
a hunting field in its might and majesty, faithfully limned, let
them look at Osborne's picture of the Ward Union Hunt. I
never saw anything more life-like than many of the figures which
it contains, more perfection of truth in the various attitudes.
Some may think that one or two of the leading men should
have been more en evidence; but that is entirely a matter of taste
and arrangement, and perhaps not wholly within the painter's
province. As a work of art, and a faithful study of a popular
subject, the picture will be sure to please generally.

The Gal way hounds met on the 3ist ult., at Monivea Castle,
which is the usual scene for the opening day, partly, I fancy,
out of compliment to Mr. R. French, its proprietor, who has
ever been one of the staunchest of Mr. Burton Persse's sup-
porters in good times as in evil days, and partly because the
picturesque old mansion, with its fine surrounding woodlands,
always full of foxes, is a pleasant and fairly central rendezvous
for the large field generally assembled at such an important crisis
in the Galway annuary. Much rattling of these woods was
followed by a capital thirty-eight minutes, with only two checks,
as my informant told me. The hounds were reported to me
as in the most blooming condition; and indeed it would be a
phenomenon to find them otherwise, as they are kennelled at

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 45

Moyode Castle, and under Mr. Persse's eye of unceasing
vigilance.

Returning to Kildare and its pack. On Thursday they had
rather an uneventful day, though the show of foxes was decidedly
good. One they sent to ground from Sheriffs' Hill, after a
short half circle, and another from Tinoran Hill gave them a
circuitous chase, of which ten minutes only were good.

On Saturday, the 4th inst, they met in the historic town of
Maynooth, whose secular arid ecclesiastical story finds abundant-
testimony and confirmation in the ivy-mantled ruins, which, pre-
served with reverend care, link past and present better than do
most villages of the same kind in Ireland. Time and space
warn us to turn a deaf ear to the sermons in stones, which the
grand old Geraldine keep would inspire. The meet was a very
large one, for the railway authorities had issued a special train
for the occasion, and half Dublin garrison — its hunting half, at
least — was in the field to-day, the Inniskillings, I think, pre-
ponderating. His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught was
a guest of his grace of Leinster, at Carton ; so it seemed to have
been a foregone conclusion that he would attend the meet, and
so indeed he did. Ponder this fact, Whalley, Newdegate, and
Co., to whom Maynooth is as the irritating red cloth of the
" chulos " to the bull of Andalusia. This fact, and a gloriously
warm day, swelled the congregation to almost abnormal limits;
Dublin, Meath, and Kildare sending their beauty and chivalry
to the assembly. A beautiful sight it was as the cavalcade
wound its way along the new avenue towards Carton, the bright
sun lighting up the mass of vividly red coats (every second pink
seemed brand new), and adding new lustre to Propert's and
Hoby's handiwork. Lord Maurice Fitzgerald and his sisters
represented their ducal house; the Marquis and ^Marchioness
of Ormonde had come from their proud castle on the banks
of the Nore; Lady Powerscourt had come from her Wicklow
home with Lady Chesham and the Hon. Miss Cavendish; the

46 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Hon. Mrs. Barton's most perfect grey charger was there, and
so were Mrs. Davis's black hunter and Mrs. Adare's bay cob,
that I saw performing admirably over a large country by-and-by.

But the big pack are working through Moygaddy Wood, when
a young hound or two makes a stampede to a false start.
Cullen's gorse is next visited. Here the find was instantaneous,
the fox slipping off just as the hounds entered his territory.
Ardrass seems his point, but no doubt the thronged roads
before him made him very careful and dubious about his route.
The second fence is a nasty thick fir tree, stuck high in a gap
and surrounded by bushes. Over this Lord Langford shows
us the way on his Solon horse ; but few follow his example,
preferring a fence lower down. After crossing a bye road, the
line led on towards Castletown, but the fox had been headed,
I fancy, several times and forced to twist about, so we left him,
after some casting around. I heard he succeeded in making
Killadoon stronghold. Lara and Taghadoe, next visited, held
nothing, so on we trotted to Courtown, where Captain and Mrs.
Davis were dispensing hospitalities to a large number, while a
few, sticking to the pack rather than the flesh-pots, saw them find
a fox in the woods opposite the house, and, after some bustling,
force him across a road into a fine area of grass land in the direction
of Straffan. A large section of the field were on the road, so their
start was admirable. Those who had to find their way through the
skirting plantation and over a brace of fences lost some minutes,
and theirs was consequently a stern chase and a very fast gallop.
Here we tail men find ourselves in a field or two charging a
wide and very blind ditch ; a herd of bullocks takes possession
of the spot ; a heavy welter chooses a less desirable spot higher
up, and comes down, so does a follower. But the chase is
speeding onwards very fast — grass to gallop over and big fences
to gallop across or fall into ; a big canal-like drain partially
interrupts this pleasant progress, and as we near the little wood
of Taghadoe, scent begins to chill manifestly. His Royal High-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 47

ness was admirably carried, and so was his equerry, Captain
Fitzgerald, in spite of a fall. Their brother rifleman, too, Lord
Clanmorris, was charmingly carried for a while on a son of
Thomastown, a half or whole brother of Abdallah's. The fox
was finally marked to ground at Taghadoe, when, I think, most
pursuers turned homewards.

On the same warm, still, beautiful Saturday, scent was most
propitious to the Bellinter harriers, who turned up a brace of
hares in the open, after a couple of most animated pursuits — •
thirty and thirty-five minutes respectively. The Ward Union
hounds, too, had a very fast thing from the enlarging point,
not far from the eighth milestone on the northern road, by
Fleenstown, Kilrue, and past Dunboyne; one horse, I hear,
was killed. On the following Monday they were equally fortunate
with a fallow deer, who ran over a most charming line, by
Vesington to Moyglare — a very fast forty-five minutes. The
first quarry, a red one, ran very disappointingly short.

Harking back to Meath, I have just learnt that Mr. Brown,
of Elm Grove, not only fed the hungry on that miserable Friday
— can there be an oyster bank so far inland? — but provided
the material for another good hunting run, which was inter-
rupted near Kildalkey village by darkness. On Saturday they
were at Loughcrew, where Mr. Naper manages to keep a very
fine head of game for his friends, and for his foxes too. The
latter abounded, but no scent wherewithal to drive them. From
Drumlerry Gorse they had a series of good hunting rings till
light waned. On Monday they had a lawn meet at Bellinter,
a lovely scene and well attended, Lord Suffield being among
the visitors. I can only speak of the forenoon, when a sharp
old fox slipped the field by crossing the turbid Boyne and
gaining the shelter of Bective, when Goodall stopped the pack,
as the riders, hard, soft, and middling, had not come up yet.
A second fox, found in the Home Woods, was, I think, fast
being run into as I cantered off, hoping to catch the Ward

48 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Union hounds on my route homewards, but losing their good
gallop by a few minutes.

In Western Meath Mr. Montague Chapman had, on the 3rd,
a very fast gallop from Killynon, by Dysart, to ground at Moore-
town, and a good hunting run from Clonlost to Reynella, when
darkness stopped proceedings ; the Hon. Mrs. Malone's chestnut
going in the old form. In Louth, on the 3ist, Mr. Filgate
sent a fox from Charleville to Drumcar, on a good line, in twenty
minutes. A new fox took them on to the woods of Barmeath ;
i hr. 20 min. in all. A third fox came on the same line, and
occupied them for another hour, when he was given up, as scent
in covert was utterly wanting, and the day wound up by drawing
all the good coverts round Rokeby Hall blank.

On the 3rd, finding at Hilltown, they ran their fox for ten
minutes, and killed ; their second, after a long ring, was forced
over Bellewstown racecourse to the Carnes, where the earths
had been opened up, and no one, like Oliver Twist, " asked for
more."

I hear very good accounts of the sport the " Queen's Bays "
harriers are showing. On Thursday last they met on the lands
of Mr. Fennell, of hospitable fame, and had a capital straight
gallop by Tubbrick and Ballybrophy, killing their hare, and a
second from Garryroan to Kilrue Wood.

Au reste, Mr. Hamilton Stubber, in the Queen's County, was
very successful on his opening day, the 3oth ult., so far as
regards the show of foxes ; and so was Colonel Chaplin in
Kilkenny, whos.e pack running hard up to Kilcreen, was stopped
only by the severe illness of Mr. Smithwick, a staunch supporter
in his day (for, alas ! it is, I hear, over) of fox-hunting. Lord
Huntingdon has had two or three very good things, I hear,
of late, notably a capital forty minutes from Limerick Hill ;
while the Kildare hounds had some ringing from Dunmurry on
the 6th inst.

THE MARCHIONESS OF ORMONDE

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 49

V.

1 And so but half a score did see
As good a run as well could be. "

Stag-hunting in excehis ! — Bective House and its Host and Hosts — Curragh-
more Sport — Summerhill and its Snows — Scurry from Ballycaghan —
Victims.

WHAT a blessed consummation it would be if grooms could be
taught to " throw physic to the dogs," and not ram it down
hunters' throats ! These ideas have been suggested by the un-
timely fate of a friend's hunter, whose " stud " (groom) fancied
nothing was so good for hunters as the old three-course system :
three balls, an alterative, and diruetic — gallops, sweats, etc., to
follow. He had probably a stock of old aloes balls by him,
which perhaps never were made up of pure drugs ; one of these
proved fatal, bringing on internal inflammation. We have wisely
banished lancets and fleams from our saddle-room cupboards
(though they too have their uses occasionally, but very rarely) ;
it were well if masters could eliminate the indiscriminate use or
abuse of aloes, nitre, resin, antimony, arsenic, and such like
abominations. In Jamaica, in the slavery days, there was on
every large estate an hospital, known as the " Hot House," for
the serfs when ill or maimed. A "white" doctor presided or
inspected; but "the working man" was generally an old negro
who had been more or less brought up to the therapeutic art as a

5o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A,

dispenser or hospital orderly, and fancied himself not a little in
consequence. " Well, Cudjoe," said the overseer one day, going
his rounds on horseback, "how did you treat Quashie B., who
was sent in last night very sick ? " " Why, massa," said the
nigger, "I just gave him a spuke and a spurge (an emetic and
drastic) and ordered his coffin ! " Does not a stable parallel occur
to not a few horse owners in their experience ?

In my last week's notes I left the Meath hounds very busy
with a young fox in the home woods at Bellinter. How he
escaped, I know not, but he actually did manage, I hear, to
run the gauntlet successfully and emerge into the open, and lead
his pursuers a very fair burst of eight or ten minutes up towards
Tara Hill, where he got to ground. Lismullen and Dowdstown
produced little but ringing foxes and patient hunting, which is
never lost on the pack, though it may stir the bile of the more
ardent and impetuous sportsmen out.

I see one of your correspondents in England emphasises the
fact that, while good men and true are occasionally seen joining
in the pursuit of the stag, they do so apologetically as it were, and
under protest. Such a state of things exists not in Ireland — at
any rate, in the province of Leinster — and, while the legitimate
sport flourishes amain, the illegitimate or semi-artificial pursuit can
boast its votaries and constant attendants among many whom it
would be rank heresy to call anything but good sportsmen,
passed masters in all the canons and cabala of woodcraft and
venerie. Indeed, the only apology heard is that horses and men
are not equal to the task of following the muckle beast in his
rapid excursions over peerless lines of strongly divided pastures,
for rarely do the deer of Ashbourne affect the roads for any
length of time ; and as for the hyper-sensitiveness which affects
extreme disgust at the common finale of a deer-hunt, depend on't,
these critics are but rarely placed, save by accident, in such a
painful position as to be riding for a mile or two alongside of a
thoroughly beaten stag or hind, with the clamorous pack all

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 51

round it, snatching and snapping away at their quarry. To say
that there is none of the excitement of finding your game, with all
the accessories of gorse or woodland — that you are robbed of
the tumultuous throbbing when you see a fine fox stealing away
over a magnificent line, and the chequered pursuit that succeeds
— that science and quasi divination are not called into play — and
that finally fox-hounds carrying a good head get over the ground
faster than most stag packs — is simply stating well-known facts,
and pointing out the differentia of fox-hunting. On the other
hand, say the stag-hunters, think of what Milton calls the " sober
certainty of waking bliss," which a good five miles in the Ward
Union " country amounts to in not a few breasts, and weigh it
against the many bad days, and middling days, and good days
over unrideable lines, which all fox-hunters experience in every
season. Think of the planning and arrangements necessary, the
distances to be traversed, the railway journeyings at a pace which
a fox-hound on a good scenting day would spurn. Think of your
horses out of your stable, not from morn till dewy eve, but till
hours late enough for a fashionable dinner party. Above all,
recollect, you who run amuck at stag-hunting and calf-hunters, that
Meynell was actually master of the Royal Buck-hounds from 1770
to 1772.

With these prefatory remarks, let me state that your scribe
formed a unit in a group of some forty or fifty well-mounted men
from Dublin and Bray, the Garrison, Meath, etc., as they trotted
on from the meeting-point of the Ward Union hounds at Kilrew,
on Wednesday, the 8th inst., for a mile or so, till our leader
or fugleman jumped a small fence off a by-road, and in a minute
more we could see the gaily coloured pack straining away and
streaming away over the wide pasture fields of Mullinam, like
greyhounds just slipped. The day was raw and cold, as if snow
were suspended in the air, but the scent was breast-high, as on
that famous day which made Billesdon Coplow a household word
on hunting lips. A biggish brook and bank intervene, but stops

52 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

nobody apparently, and so we gallop on pleasantly till we reach
the Ratoath road, which is a very bad exchange for the springy
turf we have been stretching over just now. Half a mile, however,
sees us jumping a bank into a wavy sort of field under the old
Fairy House cottage, and following the gyrations of our red deer
in the direction of Porterstown. Brooks or rhenes now intervene
occasionally, and plump into one of them goes one of Heath's
best-mounted and heaviest weights; but there are friendly arms
on the bank, so man and horse emerge all right. The line now
assumes the shape of the letter S doubled, as our deer races past
the Ballymore garden wall — some three or four red-coats well in
the van of pursuit (black preponderate in this hunt in the pro-
portion of ten to one); a great number now availing themselves
of a friendly lane leading into Ratoath. Here, some thought, the
fun was over ; it was really only beginning, though up to this
point much country had been traversed, and very fast. Lara, who
had been running in view for more than a mile, now caught his
second wind, and, sweeping by the Fair Green, led the pack a
third figure of the letter S, passing Lagore, Culm Hill, and Reesk,
and then bending to the well-known Sutherland brook, strided
over it and another less famous " water privilege," making his
way to Killegland, and then, presently brushing past (though not
near) the deer-park of Ashbourne, held on through Donnymore
and Greenogue to New Barn, where he had taken refuge in an
out-building. Among the few up at the finish were Messrs.
Trotter, Morrogh, W. Butler, Kearney, M'Cullagh, with the
Brindleys. The run, a magnificent one, is variously timed as
one hour twenty-five minutes and one hour twenty-eight minutes.
Few better things, if any, have been ridden this season anywhere.
In Louth Mr. Filgate had a capital day on the 6th, though the
beginning was of evil augury — a fox chopped in a small gorse
with a trap on his leg. The second draw was Footstown, whence
a fox took them into Meath by Rathbrane over a fine line, eventu-
ally getting to ground near Carrickmagow ; twenty-seven minutes,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 53

done at a good pace. Drakestown produced only a ringer, who
was not persevered with ; but Skedog, which was one of their best
starting-points last year, proved a better chance, as a fox broke
from it at once, skirting Shanliss, Harlestone, and Newtown
Chapel, crossing Cranagh and gaining the covert at Mooretown,
and thence on to Taaffe's Gorse, whence he was pushed out dead
beat, and presently rolled over. Time, forty minutes, of which
thirty was done at great pace, unrelieved by a single check, as the
string of beaten horses testified.

The'Bellinter harriers met a sad contretemps on Tuesday last.
As they were running a hare over the metals in the Trim country,
a train swooped down on them, proving fatal to three, I believe.
They had a capital hour and a quarter after the accident, and were
stopped by darkness.

The Kildare hounds met on the following Tuesday, at Kilcullen
Bridge. A very large field assembled in their honour. Kinnea
Wood, an offshoot of Castle Martin, was first tried, and a ringing
fox from it was killed on the edge of the Curragh. A second was
turned up after a short pursuit from the Cemetery Gorse, while a
third was hunted from Martinstown Gorse, over Carrick Hill, by
Halverstown, to Colverstown, where he got to ground ; forty-five
minutes in all, with a few good bits in it.

On Wednesday the Meath pack were at Carlanstown. They
had a capital thirty-eight minutes from Farrenalcock, and hunted
patiently and well some rather ringing foxes from Rathmano and
Shancarn, till darkness interfered.

On Thursday, the gth inst, the Meath hounds met at Bective
House, which for the last season or two has been tenanted by
Lieut. -Col. Fraser, V.C. There is not a great deal of strong
covert in the plantations and screens about, but it is so well pre-
served, and is so surrounded by foxes in the adjacent woodlands
of Bellinter, Dowdstown, and Ardsallagh, that the chances of
finding a fox on the premises are more than even. Those who
have travelled by the Meath line to Navan cannot fail to re-

54 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

collect the whitely gleaming house, with fringing woodlands and
grounds sloping down to the very banks of the Boyne, which they
view at so apparently short a distance from the metals. This is
Bective, and, like the Liffey, the sinuous Boyne has apparently
tempted a large number of the landocracy to settle on its banks
and make parks and pleasaunces for themselves and their
posterity. I should have used the past tense, for I suppose
not a few generations have lapsed since the fine-girthed timber
and extensive woods of Bellinter were first planted. At any
rate, for some two or three miles the Boyne water — which here-
abouts is of nearly the same width and volume as the Thames
at Nuneham (though weedy and foul as the Cam used to be) —
is beautifully illustrated by gentlemen's places and parks, the chief
of which are Bellinter, Bective, Ardsallagh, Dowdstown, and Boyne
Hill. The early aspect of the morning was cheerless to a degree ;
white rime overspread everything, while in the distant east the hills
were glistening with newly fallen snow — that is to say, when you
could get a glimpse of them through the snow-dust which was
falling every now and then in spray. This is our first vision
of grim winter and its realities, and the contrast of the trees still
loaded with leaf and the white earth was curious and strange.
By eleven a.m. a radiant sun had dispelled much of these gloomy
portents, though there were bits of the road in the shade where
the ice bade defiance to the thermal influence.

The meet — a new one — was evidently most popular, for
seldom does a rendezvous miles from town or village present
a gayer or more animated aspect than did Bective House and its
lawn in the forenoon, and the ladies ulstered and sabled, and
the ladies in habits, did it special honour. I cannot now stop to
dwell on the smartness of not a few of the equipages, the neatness
of the ladies' horses, or the array of horsemen and second horse-
men (the latter in unusual numbers) who figured on the scene.
Let me turn to the hounds. In Bective they owned a fox, who
had apparently chosen a very good line of open country for his

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 55

excursion; but probably these landaus and waggonettes and stylish
pairs of horses had awakened him to his danger, and given him
ten minutes' or a quarter of an hour's start. At any rate, Goodall
did not persevere with him, so we went on to one of Mr. French's
plantations at Ardsallagh, whence three foxes emerged in a clus-
ter. The hounds settled to one, and him we escorted or followed
into Bective over the railway — for hunt him we certainly did not,
scent being of the lowest order. Another Ardsallagh fox took an
opposite direction by the river, but we could not do anything with
him either. From this point the hounds were trotted on to
Churchtown, whence a grand old fox broke handsomely, and led
his enemies over as fine a line of country as need be desired; but
scent had not quickened in the afternoon, and the pace was not
rapid by any means. His course lay by Philpotstown, Tulgard,
Mr. Jones's farm, and so on to Meadstown, where, it is said, foxes
were changed; be that as it may, a hunted one, if not the hunted
one, was put to ground very soon after. Those who had long
distances to ride home were pelted at intervals by snow, sleet,
and rain — principally the latter, I think. To show how general
good scent is on certain days, I may mention that on the red-
letter Wednesday (last) of the Ward Union hounds, the Allenstown
harriers — Mr. Purdon's — had an extraordinary run after an out-
lying fox; scent most serving. I think I noticed in my last the
opening day of the Kilkenny hounds; their second (Nov. i) far
eclipsed it. Ballyhale was the meeting point, which is fairly
handy for the Curraghmore hunt, and as a natural consequence
the Marquis of Waterford and party were at the trysting-place, or
rather at Killeen, the first draw. From it broke an old fox, who
made apparently for Carricktriss, but was headed at the cross
roads of Lismatige, and turned to the right over the Waterford
and Kilkenny railway, whose gates being fastened, the hounds
gained considerably. Onward the line led past Castlegannon,
through Crowbally, then southwards as if for Knockbrack, but,
after crossing a hill or two and some heavy bottom lands, the fox

5 6 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

gained the open earths at Tory Hill. One hour at good pace had
told its tale on horses; so, when the question was put by Colonel
Chaplin as to a second draw, no one held up his hand. From
Windgap Gorse on the 8th, this pack had a capital ring, which the
Marquises of Waterford and Ormonde, Lord A. Butler, Sir J.
Langrishe, Colonel Chaplin, Messrs. Briscoe, Lalor, and others saw
well. The hounds, I hear, reflect the greatest credit on John
Tidd, their huntsman, both for handiness and condition. In
Limerick, Sir David Roche had a capital hounds' day on his open-
ing assembly. On the yth his hard-riding field had their innings
in a thirty minutes' scurry at express pace from Lisduan, the
bitches sending their fox to ground, and their field homewards so
satisfied that the master was not asked for another draw.

Lord Doneraile's hounds have been doing good work both in
woodland and open so far, and of cubs and foxes they have scored
eight brace.

A testimonial is being got up for Mr. Henry Briscoe, the late
master of the Kilkenny hounds — of the Curraghmore pack before
that. Few have done more for fox-hunting than Mr. Briscoe.
Perhaps it may be to his tact, savoir faire, and genial nature that
Kilkenny owes her present status in the hunting world — the
entente cordiale among her pursuers of all classes and professions.
Duke, the very popular Curraghmore huntsman, served his appren-
ticeship with Mr. Briscoe, and his lessons were not thrown away.
John Tidd also learnt woodcraft under the same master, and
learnt it well.

The question is often asked, "Where can I find stabling for
ten or a dozen hunters out of Dublin?" If the metropolitan or
home circuit be your aim (and this will include much of Meath,
Kildare, and the entire Ward Union country), Dunboyne, Ratoath,
and Dunshaughlin offer great facilities to the hunting man. In
the latter village Mr. S. Kelly has just put up ten boxes, and I
hear on good authority that the confiding stranger will not suffer
in Mr. Kelly's hands, and that horses will be thoroughly well
done at no exorbitant tariff.

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 57

There is a rumour afloat that Mr. Edmund Mansfield intends
at the close of the season to resign the mastership of the Kildare
hounds, which in his hands has proved an unequivocal success.
It is to be hoped that it is merely a rumour resting on no solid
foundation.

November loth introduced us to as wintry a prospect as even
that debatable land, the Herzegovina, could furnish. The wind
was easterly and cuttingly cold, and, as one looked in that direc-
tion, lo ! the eastern rampart of our island rose one huge white
barrier, unbroken by a single bit of dark or lively colouring. A
white rime overspread the fields, but that, of course, we had hopes
of seeing disappear in an hour or two; but there was no disguising
the fact that every sign and token admonished us that it was
freezing very hard at ten o'clock a.m. How it fared with other
pursuers I cannot tell; but my ten miles to the meet was over a
road which presented the appearance of a newly made rink — the
snow and rain which had fallen during the night having been
frozen to a solid consistency. It was, however, very thin, and in a
short time — barring a mauvais pas or two — horses got accustomed
to it, and crunched through the mass as if used to that sort of
going half their lives. Summerhill, the meeting-point of the Meath
hounds, reached by a side gate in the park wall, the question was,
Where are the hounds ? for it was past eleven o'clock, and the
rustics I had interrogated seemed to think they had not come at
all — a conclusion I was inclined to draw myself as I cantered up
one of the knolls in the park to gain a view, and found my horse
throwing the balled snow out of his hoofs. A minute more
resolved all doubt, for there in front of the court-yard were the
hounds and staff, while a tide of mounted men were passing to
and from the fine Italian entrance hall in quest no doubt of those
cups of comfort which the herbalists of Fecamp and La Trappe
and our cousins of Amsterdam have so cunningly compounded
for our delectation. To be or not to be, was the burning question
of the chilly hour. There was no disputing the substantial fact

58 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

of the snow everywhere, for our horses were all apparently on
castors, raised a hand or two beyond their normal standard ; but
then travellers told us of pleasant green fields near Athboy, Trim,
Kilcock, or some of those lower latitudes, and there seemed a
general unanimity of opinion as to Summerhill being the frostiest
and snowiest place in Meath. Unlike " Sweet Auburn " —

" Here Mr. Frost his earliest visit paid,
And parting snow-wreaths lovingly delay'd ;
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth when every sport could please."

Very true, no doubt, if the sport were snowballing, or even gun-
ning, for the extensive coverts look like abounding in pheasants
and woodcock. But hunting — no ! The dial hands in the court-yard
clock had nearly met at noon when Mr. Waller resolved our
doubts. Foxes are very soon routed out in the home woods —
three, I think, starting off together. One went off on a good line
out of the park, but was headed back, to the grief of its noble
owner, in a quarter of an hour. Another is hustled out rather
higher up, past Spring Valley, over the road, and on apparently
for Garradice covert ; hounds are running ; the banks don't look
pleasant or inviting to man or horse, but men press on and horses
jump — and fall too, as a hard man from the Pytchley and Quorn
packs soon found. Just as the run was warming into something
pleasant, our fox, headed on his way, turned sharp into Summer-
hill, and there, after some hunting, we left him.

We can now take a look at our surroundings. The field is an
unusually large one — more carriages than such weather would
warrant our finding along the drives ; sportsmen from Westmeath,
Galway, Kildare, and Dublin appear on the scene. The cause is
not far to seek ; it is his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught's
first visit to the pack of Royal Meath ; and Royal Meath, if just a
little turbulent and self-willed in a few minor points, principally
pertaining to the " dirty acres," is loyal to the core, and curiosity
and loyalty combined have tempted out all those " villagers gay "

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 59

who are making holiday of it, to the confusion, perhaps, of an
early fox or two. We are now trotting on eastward for a couple
of miles or so — our point Pratt's Gorse, which, cut down not very
long ago, seems in famous holding order. It is a square of gorse,
without tree or shrub, and near nothing but a solitary cabin. In
a minute or two there is a whimper and a rustle, a false start or
two ; after that it is " gone away ! " in earnest, and at express pace.
The second fence is a rather large ditch and bank, which I see
Lords Howth and Clanmorris flying in good style near each
other. Presently the line bends towards the trees of Larch Hill,
and by a. lane there is a check of a few minutes. On again it takes
us, now over the boundary fence of Larch Hill, and presently, at
a sort of up-bank by the lake opposite the house, I see one of the
best performers (horses) in Meath spread-eagled and sprawling.
On past the house, across the Kilcock road, where I see a sports-
man, who had been riding a rather hard puller in a Newmarket
noseband, get an ugly-looking fall. Next, over some large green
fields and wide open fences, in one of which a handsome bay
mare, daughter of Roman Bee, that the Duke of Connaught was
riding, dropped her hind legs (the place was very blind) and gave
him a fall, and a good skirmishing run of a quarter of a mile or so
on foot. But here we are at our starting point, Pratt's Gorse,
and once more we are in pursuit, the line taking us towards Sum-
merhill, but at very different pace — a promenade in fact. From
Moneymore in the evening they had a racing twenty-five minutes
to the edge of the Dalyston Bog, when it grew dark, and hounds
were stopped. Mr. Trotter got a lead at a nasty drop fence
(where Goodall was hung up), and never was caught. Among the
horses that were fencing beautifully were those of three ladies,
belonging respectively to Westmeath, East Meath, and Kildare.
Captain Sawle's grey and Mr. Macneil's chestnut were carrying their
owners admirably, and so was the Hon. Charles Bourke's chestnut
mare My Lady, by The Marquis. Colonel Fraser got a nasty fall in
the middle of a field from his horse pecking at a blind drain, and,

60 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

I regret to say, broke his collar bone. Col. Fraser lost a great
part of last season's hunting from a broken arm — an accident in
the field also.

I hear Mr. Hamilton Stubber had a good forty minutes and a
kill from DeverilPs Hill the day his pack met at Maryboro'
Heath; and Mr. Filgate's splendid gallop from Flatten, right
through the cream of Meath, on Wednesday last, is a fertile
theme for conversation in northern and eastern hunting circles.
Of this more anon, I hope. From the Duhallow country I hear
that every day has produced sport so far, with one single
exception.

On Saturday, the nth, the Kildare hounds — who, by-the-by,
had a very good forty-five minutes from the Moat of Ardskull by
Mullagh Mast on Thursday last, and found foxes abounding in
Nine-Tree Hill — visited the edge of their best country, where
Meath, Westmeath, and Kildare almost join boundaries. The
meet was at the town or village of Enfield, a station on the
Midland Great Western line; consequently every facility pre-
sented itself to pursuers, from remote Galway and comparatively
neighbouring Dublin, with all the intermediate places thrown in,
to attend the assembly. There were some strangers, and, if I
mistake not, a few hard-riding men from the neighbourhood of
Edenderry, who take their hunting pleasure mainly with Captain
Dames's and Mr. Palmer's 'harriers; but the congregation was
not anything like so large as might have been anticipated.
Ryndville, the first draw, always holds a fox or foxes, but it is
honeycombed with burrows, and a good run over a promising
line ended in a coney hole. Cappagh Gorse, the scene of the
wire catastrophe last season, was next drawn, and from it a fox
broke in the direction of Agher ; then, bending to the right in
a line somewhat parallel to the Midland track, he won his way to
Ballycaghan Gorse, and when pushed out of it beat the hounds
out of scent. It was a very fast scurry, and Major the Hon.
E. Lawless, Captain Sawle, and Mr. F. Rynd were about the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 61

quickest in making the best of a good start. Grief was very
visible by unmistakable signs and tokens — scratched faces, dirty
coats, stoved-in hats, etc. The east wind was now blowing half
a gale, and very cutting and keen withal. The hounds had been
thrown into the huge forest-like gorse, and the field assigned
their proper boundaries. Ten minutes pass away, and no sign.
Ten more, and no music greets the ear. It is very cold, and
we are getting somewhat lukewarm in our hunting zeal, huddling
up into nooks of shelter, and wondering when the hounds would
be taken away to some livelier and likelier spot Horns were
blown, I hear, and blown lustily; we heard them not. Who
gave the impulse I know not ; but presently every one is catching
his horse by the head, feeling him with the cold steel, and fifty
gees are in a minute or two galloping over that verdant ocean
where the eye only sees a single cottage on an eminence for a
considerable distance. The first fence, which generally engulfs
one or two at least, if not more, is crossed safely and success-
fully, I think, by all there. For a mile or two we gallop on
wildly to Cappagh Gorse, our companions a couple or two of
the tail hounds. Here we find the pack had dwelt for a short
time, but sent their fox quickly out of its shelter by Mr. Keenan's
house, over the deep bottoms, past the Decoy Woods, on past
Knockanally House, and so downhill into Hortlands. The pace
must have been very fine indeed, the line grass all the way
except some twenty yards or so; distance I should guess some
five miles or more ; but in what time this was covered I cannot
say. Who saw it ? Well, I believe only three saw it thoroughly
— Lord Suffield, Mr. W. Forbes, and Will Freeman ; and the first
named, I fancy, pulled off just before the hounds ran into Hort-
lands. He was mounted on Colonel Fraser's chestnut horse,
Famous, who won the twelve-stone Red-coat Race in Meath last
year. Mr. Forbes was on Gridiron, a handsome son of Kildonan,
and as good as he looks in any country, be it wall or bank, for
some of his education was in Galway. A small cut, blind from

62 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

the fringing grass, proved fatal, I fear, to a very perfect hunter
of Lord Langford's, a son of Solon's, and grandson of West
Australian's. Mr. Paley, the eminent V.S., was telegraphed for
to Dublin ; and all will be glad if this very accomplished hunter,
who had been fencing to perfection all day, can be brought
round. A lady got an unpleasant-looking fall early in the day,
but was not hurt. Rumour says a lady was badly hurt hunting in
Westmeath this week.

On Saturday the Ward Union hounds met at the seventh mile-
stone of the Ashbourne road, and, enlarging not very far off, had
a nice gallop for about three miles or so, when they met a very
long and decided check near the Fairy House Lane, and had to
abandon pursuit, as the flat country was gorged with water, and
the deer persistently ran into the brimming ditches and brooks,
thus killing scent.

On Monday, meeting a party of about thirty at the Flat
House, in mist and rain, they enlarged an untried red deer in a
field near the Fairy House lane, who led off over a series of
water jumps that wanted not a little stretch to cover success-
fully; a short horseshoe described, and then a brief excursion
over the Meath line, when a colley dog had a cut at the " running
deer," which was far too tempting to resist, and presently, in
jumping an up-fence, she met with an accident, and so ended a
very short pursuit — the terminus being aptly named " Quarry
Land." No. 2 was a fallow deer, who had also a strong penchant
for water ways, the very first obstacle being a brook, with a high
bank opposite, too large to stride over; so horses had to be
forced in, and then ridden out of the water up the bank. A
very well-trained hunter of Mr. D'Arcy's allowed his rider to
dismount and then jumped up after him. All were not so well
mannered, and had the hounds been running at any pace, a good
many would have been out of it; but just at this moment another
coursing match was going on, to the confusion of the pack.
Presently, by the Ten-mile Bush farm, where the pastures rival in

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 63

size those of the Vale of Aylesbury, the hounds began to run in
earnest — past Rathbeggan, past Batterstown Parsonage, on to
Crookstown, over the Trim road ; then, after a short circle, she
was taken after a very twisting gallop of some fifty-five minutes,
of which Jem Brindley and Mr. W. Butler had considerably the
best, a few others having come to grief at a double into the road.
" The sick bay," as the blue jackets term it, is already crowded
with victims to blindness of fences, want of real condition, and the
thousand and one chances and mischances which the mimicry of
war brings in its train. Mr. Coppinger, one of the hardest of the
Ward Union light weights, got a nasty fall on Saturday when
hunting ' with this pack, and his leg was reported as broken ;
but I believe a squeeze and bruise was the extent of the injury.
Lord Wa^erford got a very ugly-looking fall in his own country,
but is quits, I hear, for a cut head and face ; while Captains
Slacke and Chichester were, I am told, also more or less knocked
about I myself was a witness to a very narrow escape from
pendulous wire on a bank this afternoon.

64 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

VI.

" In spite of th' unpromising state of the weather,
Away broke the fox and the hounds close together. "

Races and Rain — Punchestown Gorse — Ward Run — Galway Blazers — Meath
West and East— Sir D. Roche !

A SHARP frost and a fall of snow so early in the season are as
scaring as a skeleton or death's head at a banquet, or. a garrulous
enfant terrible who has seen no one knows how much, and won't
be bribed or threatened into discreet silence; and yet this brief
"cold snap" has done us yeomen service in clearing away a
great deal of the obstacles to that smooth hunting progress which
we so much desiderated. The November which the cynical poet
inveighed against —

" No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member,
No shine, no shade, no butterflies, no bees,

No light, no leaves, no fruits, no flowers — November ; "

is on us, with all its accessories of leaden skies, soppy fields, and
darksome horizons. A week or ten days ago, the light streamed
through aisles of arched foliage of many hues, like the subdued
gleams of painted and stained glass. It was "the torrent's
smoothness ere it rushed below," and now we are face to face
with winter — the winter of our content. The tracery of the trees
is fast revealing itself. Presently those black depths of with and

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 65

brambles and weeds will be comparatively bare and open, and
the long fringing grass which now makes cuts and drains in
fields almost invisible to horse and rider, will have disappeared.
Riding straight over the country has been a service of danger;
the crop of accidents has not been a small one by any means.

Let me commence with a very brief outline of sport in Louth,
which want of space compelled me to postpone last week, merely
alluding to a single day in an eventful week. That day was
Wednesday, the 8th, when Mr. Filgate brought his pack to
Flatten. They found instantly a fox in the laurels near the
house, and drove him into the covert. Before leaving it finally,
the fox tried the earths, and made a complete circuit of the
place; but at last he broke by the Glen, and then set his mask
westward, leaving Duleek on his left and Cruicerath on his right.
Away he raced over the rocks of Carragubbin, where a five-feet
coped wall arrested all the field save Mr. Robert Jameson, who
got over with a fall, but was not hurt, and from this point he
had the hounds to himself, as they raced by Garballagh and
Weston into Somerville Woods. Here there was a check, but
the pack soon got right again, and sent their quarry through
the woods into the open by Bessborough and Belrath, rolling
him over at Lismool ; one hour and fifty -five minutes in all,
one hour and five minutes up to Somerville. By 1.30 p.m.
pursuers and hounds were on their way homewards, which fact
speaks well for the satisfactory nature of this splendid chase.

On the nth they were at Churchtown. The fox was twice
headed in his efforts to break from the gorse, so that Mr. Filgate
drew off the pack. From Clonbracton they had a ring; in
Rathony they found again, and had a ringing pursuit by Reas-
town, Cardistown, and Tullykeel, the fox being saved by the
appearance of a fresh one, who took off the hounds towards
Coolderry, where he turned by Aclint and Nicholastown into
Knockably, and here the hounds were stopped, after one hour
fifty minutes in all, as darkness was coming on apace.

66 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

"Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane," says the old
Latin hexameter, and so was it in the province of Leinster, in
the island of Ireland, on the night of the i3th of November and
the morning of the i4th. Let the hydrometrists tell us how
many tons of water fell in twenty-four hours ! My weather
gauge was a couple of coats soaked like sponges in an un-
usually short time on Wednesday afternoon ; and even on
Thursday morning, at seven o'clock a.m., or a little after — for I
will not assume the virtue of early hours, not having it — the out-
look was what sailors call decidedly "dirty" — leaden skies, and
scarcely any apparent interval 'twixt earth and heaven, and the
rain driven against the windows by a strong west wind as if by
a powerful hose. "Sport of kings, eh?" is the uppermost idea
as one stands in the land of sleepy debate, dubious whether
it shall be instant immersion or a retrograde movement into bed.
Sport of kings, indeed ! Well, methinks I'll appoint a vice-king
to-day, and enjoy myself like a rational subject for the nonce.
These are sleep-begotten fantasies, and one plunge into the
Lethe of cold water banishes them, bringing to one's recollection
the consoling balsam of proverbial wisdom in the old verse, " rain
at seven, fine at eleven."

There were two hunting events of major interest and attraction
(if anything could be attractive to-day) to all residents in what I
may term the home hunting circuit, namely, a by-day with the
Ward Union hounds at Warrenstown Gate, to capture, if possible,
an outlying deer, and a meet of the Kildare fox-hounds at Naas.
Now, the Ward Union country is very flat, very floodable, and my
experience of yesterday inclined me to think that on these deluged
plains scent would not be very serving, nor riding very pleasant to
man or horse. (I have heard since that the capture was effected
without much sport.) On the other hand, to hack over well-nigh
a score of miles in such torrents, and to find your natural
avoirdupois considerably increased by water concealed about
your person, is not a very inviting experience. On the whole,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 67

however, Naas and its charms kick the beam. Hunting in
rainstorm or windstorm is a mockery, a delusion, and a snare ;
but, if it is to be done, there is no better neighbourhood than
Naas, with its surroundings of light gravelly soil, which it takes
half a deluge to make really deep or holding to the hoof. A
meet at Naas is what Yankees call a " big thing " in the ordinary
way ; to-day it was almost — to borrow from the same vernacular —
a one-horse affair. Few came from Dublin, Sir Michael Hicks
Beach proving an exception ; none, I think, from the Queen's
County, which is generally represented in force. Westmeath
sent none, Meath but one or two. The Curragh was not so
liberal in its patronage as usual. Dunlavin coursing meeting
kept away the representatives of the Tynte family, who occasion-
ally, with their party, made a small field in themselves; but, en
revanche, Sir Charles Burton and Mr. Horace Rochfort did duty
for Carlow, while Mr. Frewen (well known in hunting circles on
your side of the ditch), the Messrs. Power, and Captain Frank
Cole and Mrs. Cole were among the visitors; and Mr. Rea
Palliser had come from his home in the Curraghmore country.
It is not a day to survey the beauty of either Naas or Kildare.
The houses seem to have their hatches battened down for the
foul weather; the streets are desolate. The few ladies out are
waterproofed, so as to be almost nunlike. By 11.20 a.m. we are
en rottte, a very small band, for Punchestown Gorse, a mile or more
distant. Five or six enterprising ladies have now joined the caval-
cade, and make the masculine array seem smaller by comparison.
The first field off the road on our way to the dear old gorse is
now in tillage, and as we toil over and through its furrows a
sense of gratitude must arise that we have so little arable land
in this country. We are allowed to pass (perhaps not hindered
from passing would be more correct) through the well-known
wicket gate in the corner of the field into the large grass field
bordering the run home, and this in itself is a mercy, because
the ugly rush made to it on the proclamation of a find in the

68 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

gorse — the kicking, crowding, squeezing, malison, and evil
speaking consequent upon " the real jam " there — is neither
pleasant in itself nor advantageous to sport. I suppose we were
on parole, and certainly no one went far into the field. Perhaps
the field was so unusually small that mischief was not much feared.
The portion of the gorse in sight would not harbour a rabbit,
much less a fox, as it has been recently cut down. Beyond, I
believe there is some strong good lying, and now we can look
about a little, for the rain has mitigated somewhat, and there goes
the Curragh gun for noon. It is seldom that a field in this part
of Kildare does not contain a few horses of name and character
in the chasing world. Mr. T. Beasley is riding New Purchase, a
very smart young bay horse, who has won a few events in his
time, though he has had the bad luck to have been disqualified
for three or four from careless weighing and mistaken entry, and I
know not what else. Mr. Dundas is on Ironmould. Malone, a jock
who is less known than many, but whom Kildare farmers patronise
largely (they are not a very indiscriminate class either), is schooling
a sharp little bay full of action, but rather small for our modern
notions.

But no more ! Music mingles with the west wind — a fox is
tallied away by somebody, and Mr. Percy La Touche, a very
quick starter, is half across the wide pasture in front of us. The
chase began with a gallop over the racecourse towards Eades-
town or Arthurstown; but a quick turn to the right decides
the direction, and, led by Mr. Blacker, on his trusty grey, we are
now careering on towards Keely's farm, en route peradventure to
"The Banks" or Stonebrook. Another incline to the right dis-
poses of that theory, and now we are galloping over a few green
fields, having crossed the Ballymore Eustace road, and skirting
a square bog plantation full of heather, known as Silliott Bog or
the Baron's Bog (the Baron de Robeck owns and planted it), in
the centre of which the hounds, brought into strong relief by the
russet heather and peat, are at work very industriously, and

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 69

evidently near their fox. Ten minutes' delay here till he is routed,
when his line takes us by Mr. Coffey's farm towards Mullacash,
where he tries a sewer which nipped a very promising run in the
bud last season. It is closed tight to-day, and presently, after
jumping in and out of a road, we are in a network of small fields,
and while in this district are every minute at a fence. Soon we
emerge into larger fields at Dunshane (Mr. Maunder's), over
which the hounds stream away at good pace; then, jumping a
small wall, we very soon gain the deer-park of Harristown, and,
running by its wall and the ruined castle, we again cross a road
leading to Ballymore Eustace (two newly made banks which flank
it require some handiness on the part of horses), and in a few
fields are by the side of the wall of Harristown Park, with the
Liffey below, and the Black Thorns on its further bank.

After some slow hunting in the park of Harristown, this
good fox was given up. A Stonebrook fox crossed the river
Liffey, and did not give anything very meritorious in the way
of a chase ; nor did, as I learn, an Elverstown evening fox.
The first was a very pretty hunting run, with fencing enough
for a dozen average gallops, in which the ladies and the visitors
took their part right well, Miss Kilbee and Mrs. Davis repre-
senting the former, while Mr. Rochfort, of Clogrennan, and Mr.
Frewen were in the forefront of the fray all through. Mr. Roch-
fort seems to have made up his mind to apply Mr. Elmore's
theory and practice about hunters, namely, that to keep them
right you must always keep them going, as Mr. Rochfort's grey
seems to be everlastingly galloping, jumping, or taking a railway
constitutional !

The Carlow record is something like this. On the 28th ult.,
after drawing Altamont blank, they found a good fox at Killrick,
who ran the banks of the Slaney for a couple of miles, then
crossed under Ballynoe, and gave the field a good hunting
pursuit of some seven miles, ending at Knocklow, where he
got to ground. On the 3ist, after some hunting at Ballykealy,

yo HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

they had a sharp forty minutes from Castlemere. On the 7th
inst. they met at Charlesfort, and had a good forty-five minutes'
ring from a small patch of gorse near it.

Post nubila Phoebus ! After the rain and wind storms it was
quite refreshing to bask again in the rays of even a wintry sun,
to see a glimpse of blue sky, and to feel that the elements had,
like the Sublime Porte, granted a short armistice to us storm-
tossed, rain-beaten mortals. My path to-day led me to Rath-
beggan, where the Ward Union men were to congregate to
hunt their tri-weekly stag. Rathbeggan is only a very short
stage distant from such fixtures as the Black Bull, the Flat
House, and the other townlands and farm and gentlemen's
houses beyond Dumboyne, which give names to the meeting
places. The traces of the rain floods were all too apparent
on the left-hand side of the road as you journeyed from Dublin,
much of the fine pasture land being a mere for the time being,
while some of the country looked like Holland with the dams
cut, as, say, when William the Silent flooded it to rescue Antwerp
or some beleaguered city from the Spanish attack. A little further
on is the well-known Ten-mile Bush Farm, owned by a Mr. Boylan,
who, en bon Chretien, if he has raised ramparts round his do-
minions, and bounded them by deep and broad streams, has
gated almost every field, and — oh, portentous circumstance ! —
the gates are in useable, every-day order, opening and shutting
readily, not locked or secured by chains, or tied by a suggawn
(Anglice, a straw-rope), which is probably renewed twice or three
times annually when the gate is really used. The pasture fields
of this farm are of very great extent, as any dairyman from
Leighton Buzzard or Newport Pagnell would admit, with ad-
miration at their richness of hue and splendid quality of herbage.
Here our chase after the red deer, "His Lordship," began in
earnest, the hounds racing after him over these fine reaches.
Through three gates had we proceeded at a very smart hand
gallop, which stretched the slow ones, and over a considerable

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 71

distance, when we are confronted suddenly, and I must say
most unpleasantly, by a bank studded with quicksets and gorse,
beyond it a river, and a bank on its far side. The whole bank
on the near side seemed honeycombed by rabbits' burrows. To
the strangers the depths of the swollen river were quite un-
known. I daresay at times it is quite fordable, and a handy
horse can be worked in and out without much bother or diffi-
culty. Some men who knew all about it pulled up before we
got to this huge obstacle, and diverged I know not whither-
All I can aver in the truth of hunting story is that it seemed
to arrest all alike — the cautious, the bold, the rash, the im-
petuous, the overweening, the reckless, the steeplechase rider,
and the many-seasoned huntsman; along its banks we seemed
to spread out like a fan, looking for that apparent impossibility,
a practicable spot. In a few minutes I saw a very small division
galloping on the far side. (They had, as I subsequently learnt,
the key to the fortress.) My companions in misfortune and
prison turned their backs on the relentless barrier, and tried
to flank it. Here a second river, with boggy banks, interposes ;
but a good grey, ridden by Mr. Robertson, nicking a good
take-off and landing, showed us the way over. A very hard-
riding welter attempts to follow ; but, though he lands on the
far side with the reins in his hands, his hunter is taking a cold
bath, and cooling his master's saddle for him. A third experi-
menter in hydrostatics tried a seemingly fordable spot ; but he
was seen swimming very soon.

" Like whales in the water, some floundered about ;
Thrown off and thrown in, they were also thrown out. "

After all, an easy spot was presently discovered a few hundred
yards higher, and it turned out most fortunately that we craners,
shirkers, and hydrophobists were not doomed to pay a very
heavy penalty for our discretion as we were riding on the arc
of the circle, and came in with the chase very soon. Batters-

72 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

town is left behind; a road, which I should think went to
Dunshaughlin, is crossed — and a very nasty fence led out of
it; for perhaps a couple of miles the line leads over beautiful
level pastures, intersected by deep and broad water-cuts. Then
there is a short check. We are now on the edge of Ballyma-
glasson (Mr. Thompson's residence) Lands, and a couple of
fences that want doing lead us in and out of a wood, or rather
a skirting plantation (I fancy not a few stopped at this point,
having had already a fine gallop). Then on we go over a line
of most enjoyable country — the fences smaller, and mostly
singles — till we pass the Hatchet, a celebrated meet of the
Meath hounds, with Coulstown and Mulhussey Castle to our
left. At this period of the run His Lordship was probably
headed, for he made a very abrupt turn to the right. Some
slowish hunting, though without casting, succeeded, the line all
the time being over the most inviting fields, and the most
pleasant of fences. " Wire ! " about this time, I hear Charlie
Brindley shouting, who was on his very well-known grey, " Wire !
'ware wire ! " but there was a capital spot in the fence, and no
harm occurred.

When I first took an observation, though it was necessarily
a very hurried one, we were galloping over that beautiful bit of
upland between the fox coverts of Culmullen and Beltrasna, and
going along at very good pace indeed, though far from straight.
The next landmark or place of significance that we entered was
Woodtown, the deer apparently leading us on to Summerhill ;
here, however, an inclination to the left brought us to a rather
lower level, and we passed through the little village of Moy-
nalvey, which had the honour of giving a name to a well-known
stag a season or two past ; the entire population, including " the
Force " (the constabulary is so named here), and " the fair "
abandoning their flirting (none but the brave deserve the fair,
you know), gossip, knitting, or potato washing, to gaze on the
chase as it floated by. Time, too, is on the wing. Are we never

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 73

to get on terms with this long-winded wanderer ? At last ! In
perhaps a mile or a mile and a half from Moynalvey we view
him at the other side of a quickset hedge loafing along most
contentedly, and apparently very fresh; but the pack see him
too, and in a few fields they force him into the yard of a small
farmhouse, the only one in view; and, Jem Brindley and his
father being as usual close to the pack, His Lordship is secured,
with only a few scratches about his ears, to repeat a similar
performance later on in the season, we may fondly hope.

One hour and forty-two minutes, says the timekeeper, Mr.
Morrogh, who has been in front all through, on a very neat,
small, bay horse, and I know his watch is accuracy itself. On
the map it is very hard to estimate the distance, for His Lord-
ship did not run straight from point to point, like a fox — far
from it; but even on the map the distance covered measures
something very considerable, and I should say that it would not
be easy to walk the exact track of the deer very much under a
score of miles. The distance ridden, allowing for short cuts and
other such helps, could not have been much (if at all) under
fifteen miles. The line was over the very cream of Meath, and
we skirted a number of fox coverts, such as Culmullen, Beltrasna,
Pratt's Gorse, and Larch Hill. Out of a large field, I do not
think more than fifteen or sixteen pursued to the capturing
point, among whom — for I cannot pretend to catalogue them
— were Messrs. Morrogh, Meldon, O'Reilly, Hone, Coleridge,
Daly, Macneil, Bayley, Morris, M'Cormick, Hanaway, Percy
Maynard, Murland, T. Turbitt, and a few more. Mr. M'Geer,
riding a chestnut of Captain Davis's, went admirably up to a
point. The fencing of Mr. MacneiPs chestnut was a thing to
look at. Mr. Allen, who is no feather, was very well carried, and
so was Mr. Meldon, who rode as if some fairy had graciously
taken off his three or four stone of overplus (if we set the standard
at i2St. 7lb.). A General Hess grey of Dr. Daly's was going
extremely well, and so was a young one of Mr. Runaway's, and a

74 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

small thick bay horse of Mr. M'Cormick's. Captain Wardrop sent
a four-year-old along most merrily for a few miles, and Mr. Dundas
was pleasantly carried by Mistletoe. A long ride home to stables
and train followed ; but the evening was beautifully fine, and the
sky, shot with rose and maze, may be said to have tinted to-morrow
with prophetic ray — the prophecy of frost versus rain.

In Galway Mr. Persse's career has been almost uninterruptedly
successful. On the 4th he was at Ballyduggan, in the Loughrea
country, from which I recollect seeing a most spirit-stirring fox
chase and kill some two or three seasons ago ; but, strange to say,
it was drawn blank on this occasion. Hollyhill, however, held a
brace, one of which ran over a charming line by Carra Gorse, and
was turned up just as he was nearing Ballydonelane, twenty-five
minutes of beautiful going. On the 6th he visited his Athenry
country, and found three foxes at Cregmore, one of which he hunted
with bad scent for an hour, and put to ground at Coolarne, where
Mr. Meldon (equally entered to fox and stag) insisted on everyone
taking something comforting and cheering, and then provided a
fox in one of his coverts, which the bitch pack rolled over in
twenty-two minutes. On the 8th he went to his Tuam country,
and, as a matter of course, found at once in Gallagh, and had two
rings with fresh foxes, threatening mischief; but the wavering was
only temporary, and, sticking to their original quarry, they sent
him at top speed through Brown's Gorse, and raced into him in
the open, close to Kilclooney, one hour and fifteen minutes from
the find, with only two slight hesitations.

The entry of this year is doing very well ; and if the trappers
will only leave foxes alone, a very high-class season of sport may
be anticipated in Galway, judging from present appearances.

On the 1 3th inst. the Westmeath hounds were at Pakenham
Hall (Lord Longford's park), where the hunting was principally
of the covert order ; but from Gillardstown, which is rather cele-
brated for its stout foxes, they took one away at good pace
towards Kanturk, thence by Berrison Lodge straight into Knock

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 75

Ion, where he got to ground — twenty minutes of galloping with-
out the sign of a check ; a wire, which had to be cut, gave the
hounds a good lead, of which they were never deprived. Mr.
Montague Chapman, the master, the Hon. Mrs. Malone and her
husband, with General Curzon Smyth, were about the nearest to
them throughout the scurry. On Saturday they were at Galston
and Gaybrook, and had some covert hunting ; but scent disap-
peared in the evening, when they had got a fox to face the open
fairly.

Meath appears to me to be suffering from an easily cured com-
plaint— a plethora of foxes — and Goodall is applying the lancet
freely; but until a certain number of these superabundant foxes
have been improved off the face of the earth and the remainder
taught to seek their safety in instant and protracted flight, first-
class sport cannot be generally expected, as the seasoned old
foxes slip away directly, and leave the hounds to deal with a rabble
of uneducated cubs, who relieve each other at intervals, and
do little more than run circles with home for centre. I hear,
however, that forty minutes on Monday (the day they met at
Bengerstown) was really good, while Wednesday's sport was, on
dit, of quite superior stamp and complexion. I have already
narrated something of my personal experiences and observations
in the very fine stag-hunt which the Ward Union men had that
day, sipping or skimming (whichever analogy you please, gentle
readers) the cream of the Dublin and Meath counties as they went
along; so, labouring under the heavy disability of not being
ubiquitous, I regret I cannot give you as vivid or graphic a sketch
of the " day's doings " as I should like. The pack met on that
day at Killallon, where a clump of trees on a mound and a lonely
chapel formed, some two years ago, if my memory serves me truly,
a sort of pivot or buoy — to borrow a yachting simile — for some
twenty or thirty red-coated sportsmen in their annual chase. Well
I recollect the scene, and poor Rufus Montgomery (whom Meath
and Dublin still mourn), the cheeriest and lightest-hearted of the

7 6 HIBERNIAN VENA TIC A.

party, though he had not much expectation of winning, and I
think he merely entered a hunter for the ride and sociability of
the thing. I refer to the fact of the country being the theatre for
a red-coat race to illustrate its character and class. The hounds,
it would seem, found a good fox directly they were in the gorse,
and, forcing him out of it, spun him along at a pace which a
racing man who rode it described to me as extremely fast, scent
being at its highest and best. The line lay by Ballinlough Castle,
the residences and parks of Lord Vaux and Sir Charles Nugent,
till it led into the woods of Killua (Sir B. Chapman's), where the
coverts were being shot ; and, to avoid clashing with the gunning
interests, the hounds were stopped, with a very beaten fox in front
of them. Thirty-five minutes over such a country at such a pace
is not a bad allowance of sport ; but Kilgar Gorse, Sam Reynell's
(great men must not be Mistered) celebrated covert, gave them a
wind-up of fifty minutes of good hunting by Lough Crew into
Clonabraney ; so I hope I have shown cause sufficient why Meath
should register this especial Wednesday as a red-lettered day in
her calendar. I spoke of the prospects of frost versus rain in my
ride homewards on Wednesday evening. Alas ! I must never set
up again for a weather prophet, seeing the Thursday that suc-
ceeded was about the soakingest day that has come out of the
heavens for a small age.

On Friday, the i;th, the Meath hounds made a nearer
approach to the metropolis than they have done so far this sea-
son— Dunshaughlin, the congregating spot, being thirteen and
three-quarters of Irish mileage N.W. of Dublin, on the old Ennis-
killen coach road. Its Celtic spelling is Dunshaghelyn, and the
nuncupation has something to do with St. Patrick's nephew, St.
Seachlan, whose uncle fox-hunters should duly honour, as, when
he banished snakes and other vermin from the saintly soil, he
spared the fox. The distance from Dublin was just sufficient to
banish the pic-nicking-out-for-the-day element, while it presented
no difficulty to hunting men properly so called, as the Navan line

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 77

was available in the neighbourhood, while Ratoath, Dunboyne,
and Dunshaughlin itself abound in good healthy boxes, where
horses can be made exceedingly comfortable if sent on overnight.
A frosty morning ushered in a glorious forenoon, with such accom-
paniments as the most transparent luminous atmosphere and a
very warm sun. Scent might be good, but all the chances and
prognostics were dead against such a happy consummation. Dun-
shauglin is a village, and within a mile of it is one of those
imposing semi-Gothic structures for in-door relief for the poor
which are so lavishly dotted over Ireland. Between the two is a
small gorse, well isolated and very holding, which rejoices in the
title of the " Poorhouse Gorse." Seldom was a well-mounted field
seen to greater advantage, or in brighter or more becoming con-
trasts of colour than in the green pasture field outside the fox-haunt
during the five or six minutes between " leuing " the dog pack in
and the find and " gone away." The carriages are a long way off
(a mercy, perhaps), and some 100 or 120 of about the best-
mounted men going are flashing about in the field, in scarlet and
black. Kildare has mustered pretty strongly here to-day, sending,
amongst others, Lord Cloncurry, the Hon. C. Bourke, and Mr. W.
Forbes to the fray. The garrison of Dublin spares a certain number
of Inniskillings and 3rd Dragoon Guards from parade and riding
school ; and Captain Graves Sawle represents the staff, Colonel
Forster the viceroyalty. Lord Langford's party from Summerhill
is a large one ; among them are Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy,
Lord Francis Lennox, and the Hon. Captain Rowley. The Ward
Union men are quite at home here, for they occupy the soil we
ride over ; but there is no more time to survey the fair scene, the
goodly array. He has gone away ; four or five couple of the dog
pack are out of the gorse, and if that is not enough to hunt any
fox without the field, I know nothing about it. At any rate, so
thinks the hard-riding division, headed by Lord Howth, as they
skim over a bank and ditch, which is succeeded by a very large
one, with an embankment on the far side. In a very few fields

78 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

we are in Lagore Park (Mr. Thunder's place), and here our fox,
after a few rambles round and round, gets to ground. Another
follows suit. Let us leave these many-burrowed woods, and speed
on to the Reisk Gorse. Alas ! one of our gallant cavalcade can
no longer accompany us. Mr. French, of Ardsallagh, one of the
staunchest supporters of the fox interest in Meath, has met with a
serious accident, and is now lying at the Lodge of Lagore with his
leg broken in two places. Dr. Daly is soon on the spot ; Mr.
Thunder's comfortable family coach takes the veteran sportsman
to his home, some seven or eight miles distant ; all good wishes
will accompany him ; but all this fortunate combination of circum-
stances cannot undo the serious mischief, and if the owner of the
kicker is given to reflections, they cannot be pleasant. Now, most
people who are in the habit of hunting with any popular pack in
Ireland know one or two horses who are notoriously dangerous
of approach ; they avoid them. Strangers cannot be so forewarned,
and may suffer like Mr. French to-day. Last year Captain Tathill
had the narrowest of escapes from the playful heels of a young
horse. Surely society should combine against the owner of an
inveterate kicker at men, horses, or hounds, if he persists in mingling
in the crowd after due warning. Damages were recovered in the
South of Ireland very lately on similar grounds ; if a vicious-habited
dog make a master liable to an action, why not a horse ? I talk
not now of over-fresh coltish horses of exuberant spirits, but of
confirmed outlashers.

A mile or twain, through pleasant fields mostly, brings us to
the Little Reisk Gorse ; ten minutes sees the field galloping fast
for full a mile to a swollen brook or river, which some cross by
bridge, some ford and with difficulty. Half a mile beyond this
point is Kilbrew Hill, an old park, with groves on the top. The
hounds meanwhile had run by a small stick covert, and the well-
known answer of a covert-keeper to an interviewing M.F.H. was
never, perhaps, better illustrated. " Are there any foxes in the
Bog covert now, Pat?" "Is't fawxes, yer-anner? they do be

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 79

jostling one another down there." So it was to-day. Foxes were
afoot in all directions. After climbing Kilbrew, the hounds sent
one on towards Somerville, when he swung back, ran some water
meadows where brooks abounded (brook upon brook, by the way,
is bad heraldry surely), and unus e pluribus was killed as he neared
the stick covert. Corbalton Gorse, the last draw, produced more
foxes than sport. I can only allude here to a capital day's sport
which the Galway hounds enjoyed last Tuesday from Derrahiney,
Colonel Featherstonhaugh's place, and from Longford.

Saturday was a day of brilliant scent and sport, at least within
a wide radius of Dublin. The Kildare hounds met an immense
crowd at Kingswood in fog and mist, in which it was no easy task
to ride straight or follow the hounds, save by the sense of sound.
The " day's doings," to which I shall recur in my next letter, were
a sharp scurry from Belgard, through Dr. Kennedy's place, to the
Green Hills, where their fox got to ground. They went a very
quick gallop from Miss Gould's Gorse to a point near Castle Bagot,
where the hounds ran into their fox. The third was a fine run
from Johnstown Kennedy, through Coolmine, to Saggart, when
night intervened. The Ward Union hounds had, on the same
date, an extremely sharp 35 minutes from the neighbourhood of
Ashbourne to a point near Garristown Hill. Here a view was
obtained of their deer, and 15 more minutes succeeded, as fast as
could be desired.

Sir David Roche had a splendid pursuit last Friday from
Ballingarry Gorse to Adare Manor (Lord Dunraven's) — to which I
shall refer by-and-by — eleven miles, and a crowning kill.

The Westmeath hounds had a couple of good gallops on the
1 5th, when they met at Moate; the second, from Kavedonully
Gorse, ended in a kill, after a very good thirty-five minutes ; while
Mr. Filgate, on Friday last, after killing two foxes (one a good one,
too), and sending another to ground after a short pursuit, finished
a very fine hunting run of i hour 40 minutes by rolling over a
rare stout fox from Blackball.

8o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

VII.

" Let statesmen on politics parley,

Let heroes go fight for renown ;
While I've health to go hunting with Charley,
I envy no monarch his crown. "

Hunting bravery — Belgard — Kickers and Kickees — Sir D. Roche — The
Fairy House — Somerville scenery — Kilkenny sport — Shiner.

IT was Somerville, I think, the classic bard of hunting, who first
taught us to look upon the chase as the noble mimicry of war.

' ' My hoarse-sounding horn
Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings,
Image of war without its guilt,"

says the author of this unrivalled poem, in the turgid language of
his day, and if there be but one Milton of hunting, surely Jorrocks
is his prophet, for he has made the quotation referred to a house-
hold word among us. And yet, perhaps, a closer parallel might be
found in the institutions of chivalry, which, having faithfully served
its purpose in the darker periods of mediaeval history, exists no
longer in concrete form, though much of its better part and spirit
can never know extinction or decay so long as gentleness and
manliness find their embodiment in what we call a gentleman.
For, in the first place, horses and cavalry are merely accidents,
splendid accidents, no doubt, of war, and not of its essence;
whereas in chivalry, the horse was as essential to the knight as his

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 81

lance or his armour, for a " grabby" in those days belonged to a
different class and caste. Then, again, the armourer in those
times was as great and important a personage as our own Bartly
and Peel, Tautz Anderson and Hammond, all rolled into one,
while grooms, pages, esquires, all find their counterparts, more or
less, in the hunting field of to-day. A perusal of Froissart and
other chroniclers of the period, assures us that Sir Brian de Bois
was just as particular about the sheen of his morion, the burnish
of his mail, as is the Hon. Crasher about the shade of his tops,
the length of his bows, the squareness of his tie, in the century we
live, move, and have our being in. No doubt the knight with his
blazon of heraldry, and his smart esquire and page, was a very
gallant sight to look upon, and that fair eye of chatellaines and
bower women followed him as he rode over the castle moat,
making his clumsy Flemish beast caracole as it was duly taught
in the manage. But will not half a dozen of our modern hunting
dandies, with their smart second horsemen, bear comparison with
them even in the matter of bravery and burnish, putting aside the
enormous superiority in horseflesh which modern chivalry pos-
sesses ? No ! Conservative as is the modern hunting world in
general, few will, I think, gainsay the assertion that a popular
fixture in the shires (be they English or Irish — for we, too, claim our
shires) is in fine weather a gayer and fairer sight than was joust
or tournament, with lists, heralds, and queens of beauty in the elder
days — just as it excels in cultivated eye and taste the barbaric splen-
dour of elephants in cloth of gold, and all the magnificence and
splendour with which the Orient invests its hunting celebrations.

These reflections have been caused by sundry recent meets in
this country, whose size, volume, quality, and smartness show not
only the exceeding popularity of hunting in this island, but the
enormous strides which the study of hunting properties has made
of recent years. A late master of a crack pack in England made
the same observation to me, as the sight impressed him greatly.
As a sign of national wealth and prosperity we hail it with delight,

G

82 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

and as a proof also that we are assimilating to the manners and
customs of our elder and wealthier sister, whom we resemble in
so many things barring in this year " those Bonds" from which,
thank goodness, we are mainly free. If we chose to pursue the
analogy further we might easily do so, seeing, that recent rapid
scurries have left their marks on full many a pursuer, and that the
knight of the rueful countenance is no stranger to the array; in
fact, as somebody said the other day, between swollen lips,
scratched faces, black eyes, and general contusions, a strange
"interviewer" might, only for the horses, fancy a lively little
" glove fight " had recently been enacted in the neighbourhood.

Such a monster meet took place at Kingswood on Saturday,
the 1 8th ; and though the frame of a fine park and the groundwork
of a smooth lawn were wanting to make the picture complete,
there was a very imposing congregation in front and alongside of
Mr. Walsh's residence, very near the sixth milestone on the Naas
and Dublin highway; and had the Hyades only withheld their
watery influences, and the fog generated thereby only raised its
curtain for a few hours, the scene of this morning might be
reckoned among the most picturesque and pleasant which the
hunting panorama unfolds. But soaking rain, followed by dense
vapour, are not enlivening conditions; and the show of purple
(pink if you will), and burnish of steel, and sleekness of hunters'
coats suffered greatly from the water-laden atmosphere. The
proximity to Dublin attracted naturally a very great crowd, and on
a moderately fine forenoon the master of the Kildare hounds may
always reckon on a large field, and a queue of carriages that would
not discredit Bond-street or Regent-street at their shoppingest
hour (of course, I mean only in point of number) ; but to-day's
field was unusually large, and smarter in its component element
than one usually sees. The gallant defenders of Dublin came
thither in all arms— gunners, engineers, heavy dragoons, lancers
riflemen, infantry, and staff — and in such numbers that we think
the metropolitan military authorities must favour the rational theory

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 83

that for cavalry officers the hunting field is an apter parade ground
and more practically useful than barrack square or riding school.
The Inniskillings had been entertaining the Duke of Connaught
and a large party at the Royal Barracks on the previous evening,
and that may partly account for the large attendance of soldier
officers ; for his Royal Highness's mail phaeton was at the meet
with exemplary punctuality, and soon afterwards Captain Ward
Bennett brought up the Inniskilling coach, full inside and out as it
could hold, while Captain Wardrop followed suit with the 3rd
Dragoon Guards ; the outriders of the viceregal carriage pioneer
their handsome horses, and after them follows a mass of equipages
too numerous to take stock of just now. Of hunting men and
hunting women there were many scores assembled, " never mind
the weather " being apparently their motto and slogan, so long as
the tambourine can be kept rolling and sport and excitement sus-
tained without flagging or intermission. Among the " visitors," in
opposition to the habitues, were General Herbert, Mr. Frewen, a
pursuer or two from Meath, and one or two from Galway's remote
bounds.

We are in an atmosphere like a vapour bath, but as the fog
won't disappear, and hunting the fox is our object and purpose, a
beginning must be made, and with this view the master sets the
cortege in motion towards Belgarde, which is the first draw.
Belgarde has always been a piece de resistance for the Kildare
hounds, seldom visited without finding foxes ; and, though not
quite equal to " the Cheshire breeches," that the Laureate, with
perhaps a tendency to poetic licence, declares " Lasted us three
days a week," Belgarde has deserved well of the master and mem-
bers of the Kildare hunt ; for it is, in the first place, close to the
meeting-point, and it thus enables the master to show something
of a fox chase to the crowds who throng the Dublin road, and who
are quite satisfied to ride or drive homewards after viewing a scene
or two of the first act. It has produced good stout foxes, I believe;
but for my own part I never saw a satisfactory run from it, the

84 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

situation and the crowds on the road partially accounting for this
state of things. The covert itself — a mass of gorse — is contained
within an old deer-park wall, very high, with a gate for ingress and
egress. There is a good deal of tillage on the mountain side of
the gorse, and the occupier of the land found the damage done
by the incursions of light and heavy horsemen so great that I
believe the idea was entertained of cutting down the gorse and
abandoning the stronghold. A compromise, however, seems to
have been effected, the result of which was that, while the pack
were carefully exploring the furzy recesses within the walls, we
were drawn up in a body outside in a bit of plough with a single
outlet 'for the large mass. The fog is very persistent, lifting for a
moment, then dropping the curtain again, and figures at many
yards off loom large and indistinct, while the horizon is bounded
by a single field. But a whimper, swelling into a chorus, is heard by
some, and a rush is made to the outlet in the park-wall which leads
into Dr. Evory Kennedy's lawn. Over this we gallop, jumping
over another small wall ; then a short check on the Dublin road
lets up the fuglemen, after which the pack stream away at great
pace, never stopping, till in a field by the Green Hills and Tim-
mins Castle the fox either gets to ground or baffles them somehow,
for the fact I never ascertained. However, this was the conclusion
of a very short gallop, seen well by a minority, among whom were
Captain R. Mansfield, the Hon. E. Lawless, Mr. Ellis, the Messrs.
Blacker, General Irwin, and others. The distance was short ; but
fences were greasy, and the land was far from light, consequently
grief was not unfrequent ; and a runaway horse that landed its
owner in a pit very nearly made the burden of sorrow serious, but
I believe neither suffered very severely from the catastrophe.

Castle Bagot, the next draw, proved empty; so we trotted on
to some wild gorse patches near the twelfth lock on the Grand
Canal; but they were in the same category of blankness; and,
turning westward, we trotted on along the canal banks for a couple
of miles till we reached a secluded little gorse, very young but very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 85

thick, which was made in Sir Edward Kennedy's presidency by
the landlady, Miss Gould, and known as Miss Gould's Gorse. It
is a very angular, wedgy bit of covert, but foxes seem to love its
silence and its isolation ; and here we found very soon indeed, and
in five minutes more we are stampeding along a lane, off which we
turn over a steep bank into some grass fields, where hounds race
away, and horses are stretched to keep at all anigh them. West-
manstown is crossed, and the line leads into the verge of Castle
Bagot Land, where the hounds roll over their quarry, who never
got a chance after an extremely quick burst, scent proving most
serving and sustained. A third run, terminated by night, began
at Johnstown Kennedy and ended at Saggart. I forgot to say that
about one o'clock the atmosphere, though heavy all day, shook off
the fog clouds.

This pack had a very good gallop last Thursday (one of the
wettest days we have had so far in the season), from Knockrigg
Gorse, by Golden Fort, across the river Slaney to ground at Bally-
crow ; it was described to me as very fast indeed, fairly straight,
but not well seen throughout by the field, the country being far
from easy or pleasant to cross.

Yesterday (Friday) was saddened by the accident which befell
Mr. French, of Ardsallagh, from a kicking horse ; the victim
to-day was a fine hunter of Captain Wardrop's, kicked severely in
the near fore-arm; but really the escapes are more surprising,
perhaps, than the accidents from this cause. On the self-same
Friday (and nearly at the same hour, by a strange coincidence)
that a kicker smashed poor Mr. French's leg, Mr. Filgate, in
Louth, lost " Advocate," one of his best hounds, by a kick from
a lady's horse, who had already gained an evil renomm'e for doing
mischief (the horse bien entendu, of course).

Want of space prevented my doing justice to Mr. Filgate's
week in Louth in my last budget. Let me now repair the
omission very briefly. On Tuesday the meet was to have been
Clermont, but the weather was so bad no one came, so the

86 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

hounds, after waiting till 12.30, returned to kennel. On Friday
they were at Beaulieu, when they found at once, and ran a fox
to ground; a second ran a ring, and was killed in finishing it.
A third turned up in the same covert, and ran well by Beltrick
barn and Ballydonnel, round Newtown demesne, and was rolled
over after forty-five minutes. Newtown Gorse held another, who
got to ground very quickly. Blackball produced a real good
fox, who, after standing up for one hour and forty minutes and
telling out the field, was rolled over; some four, including the
master and men, alone witnessed the end. This part of the
country had been very short of foxes for some time, and it was
very cheering to Mr. Filgate to see so goodly a show there to-day.

On Saturday, the i8th, while the fashion-led crowds followed
the Kildare hounds as near as they could, a select party of
the Ward Union men had one of their best thirty-five minutes
towards Garristown, and fifteen more in view, fast as the fastest
could wish for ; nor were they incommoded by fog in the least —
a thin rain seems to have taken its place.

Sir David Roche's run on the i7th, to which I just alluded
in my last, is so hors ligne that I must recur to it, if only in
outline. The pack met at Fort William, and found in Ballingarry
Gorse, which lies on a hill, where the thin soil hardly held any
scent at all; so, instead of hunting, the hounds dragged slowly
after their fox as far as Mount Brown ; here a change came o'er
the spirit of their waking dreams. A countryman informs Sir
David that the fox has just crossed the road, so he holds on
the bitches without the loss of an instant, and now the valley
lay smiling before them, and with the valley a fresh impetus to
scent. Russ Wood spreads out before them, and all goes well
till a cur dog comes on the scene, courses the fox, and occasions
a check by a farmhouse. Sir David now holds them on over
some water meadows, hits off the line happily, and never a pause
or dwell breaks the continuity of the gallop till this gallant fox is
rolled over on the dressed ground in front of Adare Manor, Lord

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A, 87

Dunraven's park. The distance is estimated at eleven miles ; the
pace was very good. The line led over the cream of Limerick.
Form your estimate of the gallop, gentle reader, if you have any
local or topographical knowledge to assist your imagination.

The heavy rain which robbed Mr. Filgate of a field last
Tuesday was also felt in Galway, though perhaps in a lesser degree.
The county pack met at Derrahiney, the residence of Colonel
Featherstonhaugh, a true lover and supporter of all sport in
which horses are chief actors, or, at any rate, important acces-
sories. Foxes abounded in the home circuit; one was sent to
ground after one hour and twenty minutes; then Longford was
visited, and with such success that for two hours one good fox
defied his enemies, who were hard at him with rare scent for forty
minutes. Night stopped the chase.

On Monday, the 2oth, the hunting programme for those
" within the pale " consisted mainly of a brace of items — the
Kildare hounds at Ballymore Eustace ; the Ward Union pack at
Dunboyne — utnim horum mavis accife, ardent or lukewarm pursuer !
There will be sport at both, take my word for it (am I not a
prophet after the events?). Lots of good company, lots of
coffee-housing, any amount of fencing, and some galloping with
both. If your stud is a large one, and recruited from various
hunting grounds in Ireland, and you are wavering in your choice,
let the stud groom decide the question. "The Meteor" you
knew pulled your arms off on Saturday, tried to fly everything,
and shrivelled your heart within you to the size of a dried pea,
as he just did the few ragged banks you encountered with a
slight kick back. Well, the pastures round Dunboyne are wide
enough for a runaway. There are plenty of brooks and singles,
and the chances are he will come to your hand charmingly when
he has had his innings for the first mile. Be it Dunboyne, then ;
the county is very holding and water sodden, but two days of
fine weather have improved the going marvellously.

The hour is 1.15; the day beautiful for an outcome of

88 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

November, and bright withal. The scene is at Dunboyne, a
village with a history, but which at present consists of a few
score of houses, mostly hovels, which are ranged in the form of
an incomplete triangle, conspicuous among which are one or
two tidy " pubs," where the yards are good, the provender sweet,
and the landlords or ladies most anxious to do their best for the
hunters which the central situation consigns to their tender
mercies. I said Dunboyne had a past. In the time of Henry VI.
it boasted a provost, and some men-at-arms ; but the lava
wave of 1798 swept it with its fiery besom, and after that— -fuit
Dunboyne. It is said to have been a sort of Luton to Dublin ;
but, looking at the straw thatch on the aforesaid hovels, and the
general wretchedness of aspect of the place, I cannot think that
any trade or manufacture flourishes greatly in its vicinity.

To-day the sun gleams brightly upon ten or fifteen pinks,
while about a couple of score of more sadly clad pursuers and a
couple of habits make up the array of stag-hunters. Turning
through a sort of excrescence of the triangle, we are presently
trotting past Wood Park, till after a brace of miles or more are
covered, we begin to wonder where the deer has received his
or her liberty. Presently we are relieved from our suspense,
for the hounds take up the running briskly as we pass Vesington,
Mr. Trevor Hamilton's residence, and the initial rhene is got
over safely by all save a heavy man on a cobby chestnut, who
comes on his head from the steam not having been accommodated
to the freight. An up-bank, another single, and then follows a
long check. The quarry don't see the fun of making sport for
the Philistines, and she makes way for No. 2 — the doe of
Enfield, who, enlarged at Culmullen last season, ran fast and
well past Larch Hill and past Cappagh till she finished at the
well-known station and village, giving her followers more than
twenty miles of road work home that night. To-day she bounded
first over the Batterstown pastures, ran the Ten-mile Bush Farm,
then brushed past the Poor-House Gorse on her way to Lagore,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 89

threaded the mazes of Mr. Thunder's park, swept past Reisk
Gorse to Kilbrew, where the Meath hounds were so busy a few
days ago, and was taken by Primatestown, not quite half a dozen
witnessing the capture, out of a well-mounted hard-riding field,
of light weights for the most part, among them Captain Candy,
Lord Langford, and Lord F. Lennox. Of the number of stayers
there was Mr. Trotter, who, with Jem Brindley, seems almost
inseparable from this pack. No one was drowned, though,
I believe, the master subsided into eight feet of running water,
and a curious recital might be made of many moving accidents
by flood and field. I cannot give the time, but the pace to
Lagore was fast, and the distance covered was considerable.

Meanwhile, Ballymore Eustace meet was well attended, and
the first draw, Stonebrook (the residence of a ci-devant master of
this pack and county member, now, we regret to say, in ill health),
sent forth a gallant fox, who ran towards Dunstown Wood, by
Mr. Maunder's lands, pointing for Silliott, but was headed, then
turned into Harristown Park by Kelly's Wood, crossed the Liffey,
and, holding his way along the far side bank, brushed through the
Black Thorns, Geogheganstown, Ardenode, and Mullacash ; then
recrossed the Liffey and scratched himself into a burrow on the
sandy soil of the Liffey bank, and almost, I hear, in view. A
fine long hunting run, the first part diversified by much jumping,
and, naturally, a few tumbling feats.

The grateful gorse patch (for 'tis no more) of Eadestown was
next visited, and two foxes turned out of its shelter. Punchestown
being up wind, the well-known scurry thither was not enacted
to-day, the line being hillwards towards Elverstown, then inclining
to the Downshire ; then twisting to Lord Miltown's Park of Russ-
boro' ; then back towards the Downshire, when light began to
wane, and the hounds were stopped. His Royal Highness the
Duke of Connaught, with Captain Fitzgerald, who had been
performing some military function at Naas Depot, joined the pack
at Eadestown.

90 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

On Tuesday, the 2ist, the Meath hounds met at Drumree
station — classic ground for the followers of the Ward Union
fortunes, as well as those of Meath, for 'tis the portal to a
charming line of country, and good gorses dot it at very con-
venient intervals. Little wonder, then, if the meet was a very
full one, and that Dublin mustered strong on the occasion, seeing
tujours cerf, like toujours perdrix, may become tedious and monoto-
nous— a very surfeit of good things. Kildare, too, was represented
by Mr. Percy La louche, Mr. Blacker, and one or two more hard-
riding sportsmen, while among the strangers were Captain
Trench Nugent (late master of the Staffordshire), Captain and
the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Lord Francis Lennox (a visitor from the
King's County, who seemed particularly well mounted on a very
thick bay horse), Mr. Morrogh (on a very clever Wexford horse) ;
and I fancy the list would include a few more. The morning had
been hazy and inclined to fog, and the Dublin and Wicklow
range loomed large and indistinct as one rode to the trysting
point By eleven o'clock the sky was clear and the sun very
bright, and everything was at its best. Culmullen, the property of
Mr. Kearney, and occupied last season by poor Captain Mont-
gomery, was the first point of investigation. The covert is
principally contained in a wedgy-shaped bit of wood in front of
the lawn, and from it two foxes issued, without much delay,
considering that this day was probably their first hunting expe-
rience ; one ran by the back of Culmullen House, and was seen by
the entire field loping across a wide pasture field towards Warrens-
town. Whether headed or not, or only frightened, when in mid
career he turned right back as if bound for Beltrasna Gorse,
crossed a lane, down which a couple of pursuers were riding very
leisurely, and they then got a start, which, if scent had been at all
availing, would have given them the best of the early part of the
run at any rate ; but scent did not serve a bit, and in twenty or
twenty-five minutes more the fox had to be given up.

The word Beltrasna now caught the ear, and many heard it

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 91

with joy, for no fairer gorse, or one with better surroundings,
ever harboured a flying fox. I don't know why we were taken
a couple of miles round by muddy lanes to it, as my memory
is of a pleasant canter thither, over eight or ten grass fields. A
rustic told me of " wars," by which I gathered some farmer had
a prejudice against horses on his land. Let us hope that as
Turkey has joined the Conference, or consented to a Confer-
ence, our friend, too, may listen to the tender suasion of the
great powers of hunting. Beltrasna Gorse is quivering with
music, a fox emerges pointing for Mulhussey; he is headed
back and devoured. A second is on foot— impetuous men,
Lords and Commons, jump over one or two fences popularly
supposed to be boundaries. In vain the master tries to stem
the torrent. The whole thing is suicidal; scent is low, hounds
have to stoop for it, their heads have been got up, and hence
these tears. But the fox breaks at last; it may be he will take
us on to Pratt's Gorse; two fields, three fields, and it is all
over. To ground in a bank seems the conclusion, though
Goodall cast and cast away in vain. Kilcarty is another word
of good omen. Our way thither lies over a splendid bit of
schooling ground, which it takes a hunter to cross ; and this bit
of the day was really very lively, and some of the fencing was
very meritorious. The Grange, Mr. Murphy's residence, is next
reached, and those who at this stage felt the pangs of hunger
and thirst found an admirable system of in-door relief well ad-
ministered here. We were now on our road to Kilcarty Gorse,
one of the most celebrated in Meath, but it did not hold to-day,
and the evening hours were occupied in dragging slowly after
a straight, bold fox, who jumped up from the Hill of Glane,
passed through Dunsany without dwelling or hanging about its
inviting woodlands, having also passed through Swainstown
equally sharply, then held on for Tara, and was given up at
Rigglestown, not far from Lismullen, where I think he was
marked to ground. A fine line, and containing material for a
splendid run had scent been in the ascendant at all.

92 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

Those who selected Sallins (the Kildare meeting-point) in
preference to Drumree, had by odds the best of it to-day, as the
following outline will show. Osbertown Gorse, equi-distant from
Sallins and Naas, was the first covert visited, and its size and
thickness made it very hard to disturb a fox. When he was
ejected he ran for a few fields to the Liffey, and crossed its
waters at Carragh Bridge, and was run into at, or rather near,
Yeomanstown House. Some wild gorse on the land of Gingers-
town, which is not regularly enclosed or formed into a covert,
but which has recently been much haunted by foxes, was next
run through, and from it issued a good wild fox, who, starting
at score, led the field at great pace for some twenty-five minutes,
till he was fain to take shelter in the ruins of the conservatories of
Donore, a fine pile erected by the Speaker of the Irish House
of Commons, De Burgh. Landenstown did not hold ; so a
move was made to Bella Villa, another huge gorse, and from
it a fox was ejected, not without the expenditure of much time
and patience. His course lay through Longtown demesne land,
across the commons of Lockanure, through Ballinagapha, over
the Betaghstown road, through Mount Armstrong Covert, into
the willow bed at Donadea, where, owing to the lateness of the
hour, pursuit was abandoned. A reference to the map will show
how straight the fox ran. From point to point the distance exceeds
six miles.

On Wednesday the foxes in Kildare and Meath had the benefit
of a brief armistice; while the stag was enlarged for the benefit
of the Philistines, who mustered in fair force at the Black Bull.
Three rainless days had done much for the going of this flat country,
and the swollen brooks had become contracted to their normal
bounds. Trotting along that now familiar road towards the Fairy
House for a mile or two, the hounds were put on in a field
which I fancy made part of the old racecourse, and the head
they carried showed at once that scent was warm to-day. Men,
too, seemed very full of ride and jump, for the first fence — a

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 93

brook covered over with a tangle of bush and briar — was not
absolutely necessary to jump, but most went at it with a will, and,
strange enough, all I think got over nicely. We are now by the
farmhouse of Porterstown, and our deer turns sharp to the right,
taking us over a succession of large fences, and a loose horse
or two become visible in consequence. Across Batterstown and
the terrible Ten-mile Bush Farm, and on to the Navan line ; then
a view, and the road crossed not far from the parsonage, the
line leads on once more past the Fairy House, Harbourstown,
past Ashbourne, and into darkness, the deer having fairly gained
her, or his, liberty for the time being. After crossing the Batters-
town road, and going for a mile or so, till peradventure you found
that your hunter was lobbing along instead of galloping, and just
doing the fences and no more (experto crede), perhaps it were well
to pull up before the inevitable fall comes ; and as there is no
chance of catching the pack, for they are running up-wind, we
may survey the scene from a hilly coign of vantage. Close by
is a gallant officer, well known between the flags, emerging
from a wet ditch, while several of the fields are decorated with
the figure of a solitary horseman (not in a cloak, as G. P. R.
James used to put him) who had found his ultima Thule either
in. the pasture or its boundary. The peculiar feature of this grand
gallop was that the deer were changed, on dit, twice, but most
probably only once, as two or three hounds, sticking to their
original quarry, hunted one deer by the village of Dunshaughlin,
while the main body hunted a fresh one that started off in front
of them as they were passing by the Fairy House. Finis coronat
opus, and I hear there was no finish to this chase to decide the
vexed questions of who rode straightest, who stayed longest, whose
horse was freshest coming home. Some were caught as in a trap
in that celebrated Ten-mile Bush Farm ; some were not on their
brook jumpers ; some nicked in. But, as the Laureate tells us,
" We're all of us tailors in turn ; " and no horse could be con-
demned for not living the entire distance at the great pace if his

94 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

burden exceeded izst. Among those whom I heard of as going
very well was Mr. Hartigan, of the 3rd Dragoon Guards.

The fact of changing deer must not lead any ingenious youth
to fancy deer are ferce naturae in Ireland. There are a few still in
the south and west, but in the shires they are not found, and the
Celtic deer-hound is mostly seen on memorial brasses, tablets,
ancient sculptures, or their revivals on canvas. These deer were
of the Ashbourne Park, and having on different occasions baffled
the pack while light lasted, they had thus roamed about in freedom
ever since.

On Thursday the scene shifts to the woodlands of Somerville
(Lord Athlumley's extensive park), where .wood and water and
undulating grounds crowned by a handsome modern house made
a fair framework for the hunting scenes enacted here to-day :

" Si canimus sylvas sylvae sint consule dignae ; "

" We'll sing the woods — if they but hold
A stout old fox, straight-neck'd and bold ; "

nor was such a dramatis persona wanting to-day, as the result will
show. The forenoon was dark, and lowering, and cold. Tons of
snow, sleet, or rain seemed about to fall on the earth ;
but a ten-knot breeze from the east swept over the earth, and
kept off the shower or snow bath for some hours. Meanwhile
the roads were dry and crisp, the going good, if just a little
sticky and holding, and the surrounding landscape — surveying it
in a hunting point of view — was, so far as the aforesaid leaden
clouds permitted, a survey of the most inviting character and
aspect After leaving Batterstown, Drumree, and Kilmessan,
Meath wears a somewhat altered face. Perhaps the pastures are
not so vividly green, the grass so rich or succulent, but on the
other hand, wider expanses of wild country meet the eye. Hills
such as Screen, Tara, Kilbrew, and Kilmoon diversify the rolling
plains of grass, while rivers of rapider current drain the lands and
keep water wheels busy.

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 95

The meet is an enormous one. I did not count the carriages,
but their number was great, and all seemed full ! In the words of
Ireland's poet par excellence — Moore — it was a case of

"To ladies' eyes a round, boys ! we can't refuse, we can't refuse !
When bright eyes so abound, boys, 'tis hard to choose, 'tis hard to choose."

I will be more discreet than Paris, for I will not hand the apple to
any one, and will soberly say (mindful of your columns) that the
scene was of the gayest and fairest ; but for nearly an hour His
Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, who, I think, had nearly
as much to do with the array of beauty as fox-hunting and fine
scenery, did not show on the scene, for he had railed as far as
Drumree Station, and hacked on for the rest of the journey, as
the train was late. But wildfowl are glancing about in hundreds,
the hounds are rattling the large woods, men are galloping about
in all directions. At last, and after much bullying, our fox
emerges into the open, crossing the road by the Kingston National
School-house. The hounds carry a fine head, but in half a mile
he is back again, and safely ensconced in a drain near the house.
This half mile, with one or two large water jumps, has given
wet compresses to more than one pursuer, amongst others to
Captain Maurice Fitzgerald, the Duke's equerry, whose good-
looking four-year-old has jumped just a little bit short (the
Royal party have now joined the cavalcade). There is a
pause near the Somerville stables, while the hounds are enacting
the part of sewerage inspectors; carriages and horsemen and all
now for a short space stand at ease. Did time permit, I would
endeavour to depict the scene and its chief elements. For two
prominent figures in the array I must crave a line or two of
room, or rather room for a line or two. Colonel C. Fraser, V.C.,
spite of a very recently broken collar-bone, has not invalided, and
his phaeton, his chestnuts, and his own Thibetian costume of camel
or goat's hair stand out very prominently. The other very notice-
able man is the Squire of Bellinter, Mr. J. J. Preston, mounted on

96 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

a grand grey horse that any Arab sheik of the desert might envy
(he is — rare thing — a strikingly handsome charger, and yet a perfect
hunter), wearing the uniform of his own hunt, red and green
collar. By the way, his harriers had two exceptionally straight
and good gallops yesterday, killing their first hare, and whipping
off from the second at dusk.

I must now dismiss this part of the subject with the observa-
tion that Somerville probably never saw so large and fashionable
a meet; that Louth was there in great force, Kildare, Galway,
Dublin, and Westmeath being not unrepresented, while among the
visitors from your side of the ditch were Captain Candy, Captain
Trench Nugent, and Lord F. Lennox. Having lost our first fox,
we are now looking for a second in Walshe's Gorse, a fine strong-
hold, flanked by a fir plantation. Not till the remotest corner was
gained did I hear a whimper. Then the jam ! the gates ! the
scurrying ! I see on my right Mr. Rothwell, on a clever old grey,
charging a large quickset hedge to get clear from the crowd, and
successfully. We are now on the edge of a brook, and near a
mill — the hounds to our right, in a plantation ; presently they
emerge, we cross a small fence, and then for about a couple
of miles or less the pack race across green fields, divided by some
three or four fences only, till we are opposite a picturesque castel-
lated old house, the property of Mr. De Gernon, to whose careful
preservation, I hear, fox-hunting in this neighbourhood is much
indebted. A small spinney, with a well-known earth, runs from
it, with brooks all round apparently, and no escape if we mean
to pursue. Through it the hounds stream, and again we are
galloping best pace over lands which remind me strongly of the
Severn Valley, near Thornbury. Mr. Kearsley is leading us ; an
embankment shuts out a brook in our path ; his horse, a very
hunting-like chestnut, has to do it at a stand, and just gets over
with a scramble. Lord Clanmorris has it next, and, putting on
lots of steam, lands well in the next field. Mr. Hone, Mr. Chad-
wick, and Mr. Tiernan's horses jumped it beautifully, although it

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 97

was nothing when once you were over ; but we are galloping on
again; a flock of sheep foil us much in two fields more. It is
a cold drag by Bessborough, where I hear our fox got to ground :
all clue is gone. Slater's Gorse, a couple of miles distant, sur-
rounded by grand reaches of wild grass land, is worth the journey
to see. It held a fox, but its tenant got chopped — our hopes
dashed. Of the remainder of the day I cannot speak from obser-
vation, as my hunter had to carry me many a mile homewards.
Miss Gradwell's grey cob was jumping beautifully all through ;
and no one seemed to enjoy hunting more than Miss Smith on
a neat grey pony.

I hear the Tipperary hounds had a good hunting run on the
2ist, when they met at Rochestown, and had a ring from Ardfinnan
Castle to begin with, followed by a quick find in Kilmalogue,
a sharp scurry over Logher pastures, across the Clonmell road,
and into the lands of Magnistown. Three ladies led the way all
through, I hear ; no bank too high, too furzy, or too trappy for
their light hands and clever hunters.

P.S. — Having trenched already, I fear, on your columnar space,
I regret that I can only treat, or illtreat, some splendid sport — the
outcome of the last ten days or so— in a succinct and epitomising
style.

Thus, on Thursday the Kildare hounds met at Narraghmore
Court House, and began very well with a fox from the neighbour-
ing wood, who was heading for Martinstown, till a long check in
a bit of plough marred it. Turning to Nine-tree Hill, where foxes
seemed to abound, one was hunted via Crookstown to a point
between Morne and Ballitore. From Spratstown Gorse a fox took
them to the Monte Diavolo, through Ballynure, and back to the
same hill of Shitan.

On Saturday, from Cullen's Gorse, a fine stout fox took them
via Windgate Hill to Lara, thence to Courtown, Taghadoe, Rath-
coffey, and Irishtown ; the first thirty minutes very fast and good,

H

98 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

as we learnt from the only three men who saw the run fairly
well — the Baron de Robeck, Mr. Chapman, and the Hon. Major
Lawless ; the field an enormous one.

Of the earlier events on the 23rd in Meath I have given your
readers a sketch. Having a long distance to ride home, I left them
at Slater's Gorse eating the third fox of the day. Another was
unfortunately chopped there; the third from this splendid gorse
succumbed in the open after a fair gallop through Somerville, and
thence towards Corballis.

On the 24th they had runs, but nothing noteworthy, from
Faughanhill Gorse, from Allenstown, and a third from Gilltown
into Drewstown; and on Saturday, the 25th, they had a straight
eight-mile run (as measured on the map from point to point) from
Rosmead into Killua, thence to Miltown, and by Belgeith into
Balrath, where their fox got to ground ; one hour and ten minutes.
In Wexford, where Mr. Beatty, the master, so long and success-
fully held the horn, but at length resigned it at the beginning
of this season, the sport has been fair, foxes plentiful, but as yet
nothing of great brilliancy has occurred. A good thirty minutes
from Courtnacuddy Plantations over Moneybore Hill, by Scobie
to the Bridge of Kiltrea, where the dog pack pulled down their
quarry, was perhaps the best of recent things.

In Kilkenny Colonel Chaplin has had rare good scent to hunt
the proverbially stout foxes of his territory. Forty-five minutes
from Summerhill on Monday last, to Mr. Bryant's Gorse. (A capital
ball at the Athenaeum in the evening.)

On Wednesday a good fox from Kiltornan ran two wide rings
very fast, and, after standing up for two hours and thirty-five
minutes, his life was spared at the intercession of the field. A
visitor, Mr. Hamilton Stubber, master of the Queen's County
hounds, and Major Bunbury, were in the front rank all through.

On Friday, finding in " The Rock," they ran to Woodsgift, on
to Tallyho (this savours of the Pytchley country), towards Killeen,

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 99

and ended in semi-darkness at Knockloe ; Shiner, the winner of
the Kildare red-coat race, carrying the master to perfection.

I referred to Mr *Filgate's ill-luck in losing Advocate by a kick
from a lady's horse last week. This week Duster, a third-season
hound — the oracle of the pack — was ridden over and killed.
A ring of fifty minutes from Mallabone, and a good thirty minutes
from Stephenstown into Dundalk, were the best things of the
week in Louth, to which I must refer in my next.

On Monday, the 2;th, the Meath hounds visited the neighbour-
hood of the metropolis (Dublin), and the metropolis showed its
appreciation of the honour by turning out en masse to see them.
The day was clear, dry, and bright. The opening scene at
Abbotstown, the residence of one of the members for the county
Dublin, Mr. Ion Trant-Hamilton, was picturesque and brilliant
in the extreme; while "society" made a point of putting in
an appearance and attending the improvised farewell levee and
drawing-room (for really it was nothing less) of his grace the Duke
of Abercorn, who, as everybody knows and everybody regrets,
is relinquishing the Viceroyalty of Ireland, an office which is apt
to sink and rise in popular estimation according to the personal
character and dignity of its occupant. Needless to say here
that in his grace's hands the Court of Dublin suffered no diminu-
tion in splendour or prestige, or that the sword of state was
right worthily and majestically borne. His grace did not hunt,
save vicariously; his son, Lord Ernest Hamilton, having entered
very well to hounds, and his staff being among the hardest of the
hard. Lady Georgina Hamilton attended the meet near Dublin,
and was out to-day, piloted by Colonel Forster, master of the horse.
As a cricketer and rifleman the duke's name is well known to
readers of The Field. A capital ring in the evening from Kilrue
Gorse was the most noticeable thing in the day's proceedings,
to which I shall allude again.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

VIII.

! There lived — I do not deal in dates —

A champion of the heavy-weights,
Who o'er Kildare and Meath has done
Great things, in spite of sixteen stone. "

Mr. Chapman and the run from Cullen's Gorse — Abbotstown — Cork and
Limerick — Kilteel and " Snow-Storm. "

BY one of those ingenious fictions which, perhaps, owe their origin
to the fact of the framers of our systems of law and divinity having
been casuists of the first force, a bishop is supposed to say nolo
episcopari, or words to that effect, before he is inducted to his see.
Fancy a hard-working man, with a large family, who has known
and tasted for years the pleasures of parochialism and poverty,
while the parent tree has been absolutely weighed down by the
number of fruit-bearing branches — fancy such a man, full of
brains, full of organization, full of ambition, saying with real
intent nolo episcopari. The office of master of a crack pack of
subscription hounds, in these censorious and extravagant days,
is open to far more hesitation and doubt The vista of difficulties,
diplomatic imbroglios, social pit-falls, failures imminent from a
thousand unforeseen chances ; the utter impossibility of pleasing
the ever-contending factions of laudatores temporis acti and the
rash innovators of the fast-galloping school; the unjust criticism
which perverts prudence into cowardice, discretion into want of
zeal, Fabian tactics into hesitating imbecility — all these Scyllas
and Charybdises, and a thousand more too numerous to write

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 101

down here, are enough, in the language of the poet, to appal the
bad, afflict the best. J^olo esse M.F.H. is the true burden of most
men whose birth, means, and county position would entitle them
naturally to aspire to the dubious honour, if they have been behind
the scenes, and learnt something of the hard work, energy, tact,
and brains (and even this combination is powerless against ill-luck)
which a tolerably successful mastership involves. Fortunately for
fox-hunting, Curtii are found ready to leap in full armour into the
yawning gulf. The labour we delight in physics pain. The
position has so many attractions to countervail the crop of
anxiety, worry, and grumblings which each season germinates,
that in England or Ireland a pack of fox-hounds rarely remains
masterless for any length of time. The words of that old sea
song —

" How proud must be our Admiral, though he is pale to-day,
Of twice five hundred iron men who all his nod obey" —

keep dinning themselves into my memory when I think of the
power and dominion wielded by an M.F.H., his social influence,
his autocracy in all matters connected with the county sport, his
hegemony among the legions of the rank and file of men whom
hunting enlists as its ministers and acolytes. The glamour of the
position is great, and the halo which encircles venatic successes
is lit up with prismatic brilliancy.

These reflections are suggested by the fact that at the end
of the present season Kildare will be masterless. What I
announced as a rumour has ripened into fact. Mr. Mans-
field is not a Quaker, but his yea is yea, and his nay nay, and
he has said the latter with emphasis and decision. When Sir
Edward Kennedy (to whose presidency Kildare is immensely
indebted, in the kennel department especially) resigned the horn
some seasons ago, the county was masterless, kennelless, and, so
far as hunting went, homeless. Backed by the unanimous support
of the members of the hunt, Mr. Mansfield has organized the

102 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

commencement of a permanent, not a peripatetic system, changing
with each master — permanent kennels near Naas, with houses for
the staff, to which stables will, I believe, be very soon added.
His dictatorship has been eminently successful, and general regret
is felt that he should give up a position which he has filled very
ably and satisfactorily. I recollect writing, when the office was in
commission so to speak, that I was reminded of the imperial
succession as depicted in Tacitus's terse and graphic language,
that one, perhaps more than one, of the aspirants to the honour
was avidus sed impar, another capax sed aspernans. It cannot be
said of Mr. Mansfield, in the words of that historian, that universal
consent would have proclaimed him the fittest man for the post
had he never actually filled it, for he has filled it, and public
opinion is justified.

One of his great successes dates from Saturday, the 25th, to
which I could only allude cursorily in my last letter, from the
want of time and space at command. The Kildare hounds met
at the Hazelhatch and Celbridge station of the Great Southern
and Western Railway. Now a certain amount of uncertainty hung
about this meet in the minds of men. The station is a mile or so
from the town of Celbridge, and precedent generally brings the
pack into the main street of Celbridge from the station. Many
came to the tryst from afar — from Meath, Westmeath, and its
confines, for instance ; and though a mile there and back is not
much for a hunter, yet no one wishes to add this distance to the
sum total of what may be a very long day even in mileage. It
was very possible, if not probable, that Mr. Mansfield would
cross the line and try some of the trans-rail coverts, such for
instance as Boston, Cullens Wood, and Pigeon Hill; so most
people did the right thing, and went to the meet instead of
awaiting the pack at Celbridge. A drizzling, heavy, overcast day,
inclined to fog, it was not an inviting atmosphere for the butter-
fly element, nor were carriages in such great force as I have seen
them. On the other hand, Mr. and Mrs. Adair had come all the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 103

way from the Queen's County. The Ladies Fitzgerald and Lady
Annette La Touche were Aiding, and so were Mrs. Langrishe,
Mrs. Morris, and a few more. His Royal Highness the Duke
of Connaught honoured the meet, attended by his equerry,
Captain Maurice Fitzgerald (on a confidential roan from Mr.
Kearsley's school). Mr. A. Macniel, Captain Tuthill, Mr.
Chapman, and a few more represented Meath; Colonel Forster
and the officers of the 3rd Dragoon Guards and Inniskillings came
from Dublin ; while of the absentees for the earlier part of the
season, the most conspicuous (and not the least warmly welcomed)
was the Earl of Clonmell, on his old favourite, Tipperary Boy,
with the shapely Courtown for second horse. Mr. Mansfield soon
resolved our doubts by the mot d'ordre " Cullen's Gorse." This
set the cavalcade trotting on for a couple of miles, till the riders,
some 200 strong, were jammed into a laneway with only one
apparent exodus. The hounds are in the gorse in front of us ;
but almost before we can think of tightening girth or hardening
heart, or abandoning an interesting conversation, the crowd is in
motion, every one pressing to the corner gap. A scramble — a
jump — and lucky those who emerged quickly. A few at the
tail of the queue take a biggish fence, and thus get on fair terms
with the leaders ; for the majority a stern chase is inevitable.
For five or six fields, with not more than three fences, it is
racing pace, specially for the bad beginners. Then a road is
reached, and the track is nearly identical with that of the last
time the hounds drew the gorse (the Maynooth day), and we
may not unwarrantably presume that we are hunting the very
same fox we lost on that day. A few more fields bring us to
the top of Windgate Hill, and then there is a pause of a few
moments. Then the broad red and black line jumps out of a
road; some are confronted by a bank, others by newish palings,
which all do not get over very successfully. Two fields after
this, the track brought one to a very wide ditch and bank, while
in the best part of it a chestnut horse was engulfed, barring

io4 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

progress — his owner, one of the hardest men in Kildare, standing
over him in hopeless disappointment Now this place was, I may
say, the key to the whole position ; four men charged it manfully —
Major the Hon. E. Lawless, the Baron de Robeck, Mr. Chapman,
and Mr. Blacker ; the latter was the victim — the other three alone
saw the cream of the run ; and, of the trio, Mr. Chapman, who
cannot be much under i6st., saw it at the nearest distance, for,
sooth to say, the hounds had much the best of it. I should have
stated, for the benefit of your general readers who do not know
Kildare thoroughly, that the country we were riding over to-day is
on the borders of Meath — rich pasture land like Meath, very
flat, and fenced by deep and wide ditches, occasionally margined
by a bank, and intersected by brooks and deep cuttings. The
country is very featureless, one pasture much resembling another,
one fence its predecessor. Hence, as the day was extremely
hazy, nothing was easier than for those who were toiling behind
fruitlessly, and attempted independent lines, to miss their way and
come to hopeless grief. To return to the three — there is something
mystical and magical in the number ; — after jumping into a cross-
road, their track lay past Taghadoe, with its ruined tower and
church ; past Lady Chapel, right across one of those huge cuttings
I alluded to, and so on to Lara Covert. Here there was some
little delay, though not sufficient to let up the field, and on
the course lay between Kilcock and Courtown, the fox pointing
as if he meant to seek his rest in Ballycaghan or Cappagh Corses ;
presently, however, he turns to the left, and enters Courtown
demesne lands, and here a view is gained. Mr. Chapman, up
to Courtown, had gained first honours— fact'/e princeps, and never
was diploma of merit better earned; for, conceding something
to luck in getting a start away from "the madding crowd,"
something to topographical knowledge, it is no small praise for
such a heavy weight to have almost distanced an enormous field
over a big line and land holding enough in places. At Courtown,
I was told, though I vouch not for the authority, that foxes were

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 105

changed, and that a fresh fox led a small but considerably in-
creased field (the tributary roads were now swelling the flood),
once more by Lara, on by Tbolloughstown, thence to Taghadoe,
and so on by the swampy fields of Rathcoffey into Irishtown,
and on to Major Barton's home farm, where scent died away;
and as all now, whether they were with the hounds, or questing
after them, or scurrying about the country for tidings of the
missing pack, had had galloping and fencing enough in the two
hours and fifteen minutes of this long pursuit, there was a
general dispersion, to which I think the certainty of finding
luncheon and everything that hungry hunter can desire at
Straffan House, or Lodge Park contributed not a little. There
was a great deal of grief in this run, but, fortunately, nothing
of a very serious type, Captain Fitzgerald, the Duke of Con-
naught's equerry, getting as heavy a fall as most out. The first
part of the race up to Lara was extremely fast and good, and the
names I have mentioned were alone on fair terms with the flying
pack. From Courtown there was some pretty hunting and large
fencing, and in this part Captain Ward Bennett, Mr. Ellis, Mr.
Macniel, and a few more were very well carried. The parallel
between war and hunting is an old one, but in nothing perhaps
is the analogy closer than in a thoroughly beaten and demoralised
field devouring roads and fields in a sauve qui pent style — the
majority armed with the most cogent reasons why they were not
close to the leading hounds. Few coats were unsmirched; the
Board of Works drain played havoc with the unities of pipeclay
and French polish ; but I think all went away with the conviction
that they had " assisted," feebly or forcibly, at a " real good
thing." The warm, muggy morning made scent all ablaze on
those rich low pastures ; but Jem Hill's axiom that a good scenting
day is invariably a good hearing day was quite negatived on this
occasion. The hounds ran anything but mutely, and yet they
were almost inaudible a few fields off.

On Monday, the 27th, the original fixture for the Meath

106 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

hounds was Beau Park, the beautiful residence of Mr. Gustavus
and Lady Fanny Lambert, on the river Boyne; but it was
suddenly changed to Abbotstown, the park of Mr. Ion Trant
Hamilton, M.P., a short distance to the northward of Dublin.
The alteration involved some dislocation of hunting fixtures, but
the Ward Union men proved that their edicts were neither
Median nor Persian in their character, for they agreed to forego
their assembly at the Flathouse to avoid the peril of clashing.
I rather fancy, though I speak without inspiration or authority,
that the change in these arrangements venatic was made to gratify
a wish expressed by his grace the Duke of Abercorn, who was
desirous of seeing a meet of the Meath hounds before he bade
farewell to Dublin, its court, and its castle. Be that as it may,
the gathering in front of Mr. Hamilton's comfortable mansion
was not only exceptionally large, but eminently aristocratic, com-
prising as it did most of the notables who form the camp and
court of Dublin. The hounds came by train, and did not appear
in the court-yard till long past eleven o'clock, so that there was
ample time, not only to take a leisurely survey of the splendid
pageant, but also to gratify a more imperious and aggressive
sense, provoked by a frosty morning and a long ride, in the
dining-room of Abbotstown, which was hospitably thrown open
by its owner to esurient pursuers. Among the early arrivals is
the coach of the Inniskillings ; soon follows his Royal Highness
the Duke of Connaught's phaeton, containing its owner and
Captain M. Fitzgerald, apparently none the worse for Saturday's
catastrophe. The Viceroyal carriage, with its team of brown
horses and outriders, is always a goodly sight, and some half-
dozen more carriages grouped around were good enough and
well enough turned out even for Hyde Park of a June afternoon.
Time would fail me to catalogue the tenants of smart Victorias,
waggonettes, T carts, and modester Croydons. Let me dismiss
the subject by remarking that the following comprised the Marquis
and Marchioness of Drogheda, the Marchioness of Blandford,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 107

the young Earl of Sunderland, Lady Georgina Hamilton, Lord and
Lady Courtown, the Hon. Colonel Thesiger and his boy on a model
hunter pony, the«Hon. S. Maxwell, the Hon. Captain Rowley, and
Lords Howth, Clanmorris, and Langford.

The woods of Abbotstown were drawn pro forma; not that
foxes don't harbour here, but no fox would hang long in their
covert while carriages were grinding the gravel, and the hoofs of
hundreds of horses were resonant all round. In Hollywood Rath
demesne, no sooner were the pack put into the small belt of trees
than two foxes emerged, one striding off to a gorse a short way off,
while a second ran towards Abbotstown, with a few couple of
hounds in pursuit. It was my fortune to follow his Royal High-
ness, who, mounted on his black horse, gave us a capital lead over
a deep ditch and a small brook (where I've seen grief before now)
in pursuit of this little lot, but we did not persevere, hoping the
main body of the pack would come up. This they did not do.
It seems the Ward River, rather in flood, arrested the tide of
pursuit, and certainly the dauntless few who did cross it by wading
or swimming justified a long pause, if not a full stop. Lord
Clanmorris got over somehow, but the next man who emerged
had to ride home without stirrups, and with a stone or two of
water about his person.

Ballymacarny Gorse was the point of departure for several
very good gallops last year. We found there, but could not force its
tenant outwards ; so, after running through Priestown Furze brake,
we got on to Kilrue. Here the find was very quick, and the early
stages of the run capital, till a check occurred not far from
Ashbourne. The line, which seemed to be leading on towards
Sutherland, now turns to the left, and hounds are again running
hard back towards Kilrue, then through it and in the direction of
Balfestown, with an inclination back to Kilrue — a figure of 8
almost — when the pack and very diminished field, who had been
going au clair de la tune, had to be stopped, seeing that the hounds
had to get back to Dunboyne station to catch their train home-

io8 HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A.

wards. Had the ^gallop finished a very few moments sooner,
Captain Graves Sawle would not have had to mourn the loss of a
very good hunter, who broke a hind leg at the close of the pro-
ceedings. There was much grief in this pursuit, but Captain Sawle's
sad accident (for all must be saddened by the loss of a good
hunter) was the only serious misadventure I heard of. Escapes
from kicking were narrow ; among others the Duke of Connaught
was well-nigh a sufferer. A good move was made by a few men
out, who warned others by literal devices not to come too near
their kicking hunters —

" I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurse,
I pede fausto."

The Meath programme at Philpotstown on the 28th was most
attractive. The Duke of Connaught was sure to draw a gallant
concourse of fair women and brave men. The country round is
charming to the hunting ken ! Why not Philpotstown ? Can
anyone give an absolute single reason for many of the minor
moves he makes in the game of life, for the day's or hour's arrange-
ments? Motives mingle and cross each other like the rays of
light in perspective. I will not attempt to disentangle the skein.
Whether it was love of change, the recent successes of the Kildare
hounds, the facilities or difficulties in getting backwards or
forwards, the hour of rising, or what influenced me, suffice it to
say here that Straff an was my goal on Tuesday, the 2 8th — Straffan
Bridge the fixture of the Kildare hounds ; nor is any special reason
or excuse necessary to assign for a visit to so fair a scene. The
reach of the Liffey under Straffan House is one of the best bits of
that winding stream, and on a calm morning Major Barton's hand-
some house is seen clearly mirrored in the pool below, perfect as
in a photograph. A pleasant distance from Dublin by road- or rail,
accessible to the Queen's County and Meath, and surrounded by
agreeable and hospitable country houses, Straffan Bridge is not
only a pleasant and picturesque spot in itself, but 'tis also the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 109

avenue to one of the best portions of Kildare's hunting grounds,
either looking towards Maynooth or Sallins, while the parks near
the bridge are not sufficiently wooded to induce a fox, if pushed
about sharply, to dally long in their glades and pleasaunces. Riding
home last night from the final gallop with the Meath hounds, a
red-shot sky boded either frost or rain, or both in quick succession •
the former prevailed during the watches of the night, and by 9 a.m.
white rime overspread everything, the roads were hard as adamant,
and thin ice was formed over all the surface waters. By noon the
sun shone out pretty effectively, and, though it was freezing in the
shade, mud was to be seen in the thoroughfares. Straffan Bridge
is always thronged, nor was to-day an exception. It is a fixture
much affected by ladies, and the hunting ladies were there almost
to a woman — among them the Ladies Fitzgerald, the Hon. Mrs.
Barton, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. and Miss Tuthill, Mrs.
Langrishe, the Marchioness of Drogheda, Lady Annette La
Touche, the Misses Finlay, Miss Kilbee, Mrs. Adair, and lots
more besides ; but of the names I have mentioned a few were
driving, and not riding to-day. Among the visitors from neigh-
bouring counties were Mr. Adair and Mr. Skeffington Smyth, Mr.
Macneil, and one or two men from Meath. The Curragh and the
Dublin Garrison swelled the assembly, which was certainly large,
but withal very manageable.

The first bit of Straffan (an old gorse) drawn revealed nothing
more than the fact that the fox had left it a short time before.
The outskirts of Lodge Park did not even do so much as that.
Castle Dillon Gorse, voted a certainty, failed us, as so many
certainties do occasionally. Straffan Park remains, and hardly
have we passed the house and shrubberies before the long line is
in rapid motion, and we are galloping into a lane way, some-
thing in advance of those confoundedly slow hounds who will
stick to their line ! Here they come at last, not lifted to be sure,
but hunting every yard of the ground. A little room is made for
them, and then they go apparently for Rathcoffey — a good gallop

no HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

in prospect ! The lane is choked. Mr. R. Kennedy takes one
figure out of it by jumping his clever cob over a wide ditch. Two
ladies and a man or two follow suit, but their effort to emerge is in
vain. The hounds turn back and hunt on straight into the woods
of Clongowes College, nearly a mile distant. Here, in a coney-
burrowed bank, he took refuge, and, there being no extricator
near in the shape of spade or terrier, he was left to his ill-
earned rest, while the field — those at least whose lines were
not cast in distant counties — crossed the Liffey in semi-Indian
file by Major Barton's Suspension Bridge (a bugbear to young
horses sometimes) on their way to Bishopscourt, where creature
comforts as well as foxes were sure to be forthcoming. Alas for
the demolition of aerial castles ! There was no fox forthcoming
at Bishopscourt (which is quite a phenomenon), and at the
adjacent covert of Boston, Lord Cloncurry's — the spes suprema of
the day — a fox was chopped.

Apropos of the text of the earlier portion of this letter — from
which, like many other chroniclers, I diverged widely, led away
by the fancies and ideas of the moment — I should state fairly, in
referring to Mr. Mansfield's resignation of the Kildare mastership,
that a portion of the Dublin press gave circulation recently to a
most visionary and startling report that Mr. Mansfield's retirement
was owing to a grave misunderstanding with an influential member
of his hunt. Those who knew Mr. Mansfield well must be aware
how extremely improbable such a contingency would be. Still,
the report was circulated with the addition of circumstance, and,
for aught I know, it may have travelled further than our insular
limits. Let me here, then, state most positively, with authority —
myself an uninfluential member of the hunt — that for once rumour
had not even a colouring of truth ; that no misunderstanding what-
ever has led Mr. Mansfield to take a step dictated solely by his
personal wishes and convenience, for the simple reason that no
misunderstanding whatever has arisen.

I have recently had to write short obituary notices of several

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. nr

good hunters killed through hunting accidents. Captain Sawle's
black horse yesterday was the recentest disaster. Mr. Cosby's
ill-fortune in losing two valuable animals he was taking over with
him to Pau — two out of eight — is even a more grievous mis-
chance ; for of the others may be said, as it was by the Grenadier
of the old French Guard in answering for his comrades after
action, " Mort sur le champ de bataille" But Sampson, one of
Sir Edward Kennedy's hunt horses originally, and reserved for his
own use by Mr. Cosby, had none of the rapture of the strife ; he
was an exceptionally good hunter in any country, and his owner
bought him in last May at Sewell's, when he was bid up to a very
high figure. His performance in the Great Cullenagh run last year
— if unsupported — would have stamped him as a high-class hunter.
Mr. Filgate, in the matter of hounds, seems one whom —

" Unmerciful disaster

Follows fast and follows faster " —

in the words (or something like them) of the bard. A lady's horse
recently was unfortunate enough to kick and kill that good hound
Advocate; on the 22nd he lost Duster (in the master's opinion
the best hound he ever owned), ridden on and killed in a good
ring from Mallabrone — a circumstance which probably saved this
fox's life, as master and men stopped with their favourite in his
death agony.

While the Kildare hounds were out of luck in their Straffan
country, the Ward Unionists (if I may use a term which somehow
seems suggestive of strikes and picketing) had a capital half-hour
or more with a deer who ran over a considerable portion of the
Fairy House racecourse — a line familiar to many of your readers,
who, no doubt, would be glad to be riding in pursuit on that
Easter Monday, when silk usurps the place of scarlet.

On Wednesday, the 29th, Lord Derby — a Knowsley red stag,
of course — led them across part of the Ten-mile Bush Farm, and
over the Rathregan Lock, which proved a barrier insuperable to

H2 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

all but a gallant half-dozen. The line led on past Parsonstown
Manor over Mr. Seery's grass lands, which are entered by a fine
wide-topped double, thence across the rails of the Dublin and
Meath line, till he was captured in an outhouse, on the lands of
Pelletstown, I think — the riding division having crossed the metals
by Killeston Bridge, which is not far from Drumree station. A
second deer, a fallow of great reputation, was in the deer van, but
somehow we missed the driver, or the driver missed us, though we
went in quest of him as far as Dunshaughlin village. There were
a few very smart horses out to-day, notably a chestnut son of
Thomastown's — Tomboy, I think, by name, Lady Langrishe, and
a nice brown mare ridden by Captain Colthurst — while a lady was
charmingly carried by a grey that I recollect noticing with the
Meath hounds some weeks ago.

I hear the Newbridge harriers have had very good sport lately;
and on Monday they got off on capital terms with an outlying
fox, whom they might have accounted for if he had not got into
sanctuary — a fox covert, inviolate of course for harriers. The
on dit is that his Royal Highness, who seems as fond of hunting
progresses as was the Earl of Spencer in his viceroyalty, is about
to see a new phase of fox-hunting in the south, the Duhallow
country being destined for his first visit. Mr. Hare is, I am told,
fortunate in finding plenty of foxes in his new territory, and scent
enough to drive them along ; but the United Hunt in Cork seem
to be engrossing the lion's share of the good things " down south,"
as they say in America. Thus, on the 2oth, when they met at
Bally Edmund, Captain Smith Barry's glen supplied material for
two hours' covert hunting, after which the pack got on to one at
Temple Carriga. and sent him racing to Young Grove, beyond
which he got to ground. On Wednesday, the 22nd, they had a
capital run from Devonshire's Brake to Lenlara. On Friday, the
24th, they were at Mogeely, and the large field out included Lord
Fermoy, the Hon. Miss Roche, Mr. R. N. P. Fitzgerald, etc.
From the Strand Road Covert they took a fox without pause or

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 113

9

dwell to Cloyne Rocks, where he was safe from molestation —
Miss Roche, I hear, in the very van of pursuit all through. A
second fox turned up at Knockastrikeen, and was raced at top
speed for some four miles, which disposed of the majority of the
field, save Messrs. T. Coppinger, J. Murphy, and S. Bowles, who
were in the front rank, as well as the huntsman. The Galway
hounds have been stopped for a week, owing to the death of
Mr. Robert French, of Monivea Castle ; while Mr. Taaffe's death
suspends the Roscommon stag-hounds on Thursday, on which date
they were to have met at Strokestown.

The recent story of the Limerick hounds, some of whose
brilliant passages I have alluded to at intervals in my weekly
letters, is somewhat as follows : On the i;th ult. they met at Fort
William, and the very limited number of red coats boded well for
elbow room and sport. There seemed a good stock of foxes
in Ballcngarry Gorse, but the selected of the pack was a ringing
brute, whose tactics were round and round the hill; so he was
given up after an hour's hunting. A move was now made to
Mount Brown, and just as the pack were entering the demesne
they hit off the line of a fox who had evidently just gone away;
so, feathering and examining the ground carefully, they at last
settled down to him, racing him to the Ballingarry road towards
Lisnemota ; they then sent him at top speed over the water
meadows, with Ballylin to the left, then brushing Ross Covert,
they crossed the Kilfenny Road, passed the Glebe House at
Derrytosna, surmounted Spierman's Hill, and entering Adair
Manor by old Castle Robert Wood, they rolled their fox over in
the open by the river banks, almost under the shadows of the
ruined abbeys. Distance, nine miles, done under the hour. On
the 2oth they were at Inch St. Laurence, and found plenty of foxes
in the gorse at Knockyon, and killed one of them without much
sport. From Ballinagarde a fox stood up for two hours, and got
to ground at last. Fedamore Gorse, which is well preserved by
Captain Smith, supplied a third fox, who ran in rather a zig-zag

i

ii4 HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A.

fashion till dark, when the pack were stopped at Grey Bridge.
On the 24th they were at Rostemple, and found a good fox at
Glenna, who went away gallantly to Castle Ivers ; thence he held
on between Clorone Gorse and Isamore, with Tory Hill (not the
Waterford mountain) in front, thence by the poor-house of Croom
into Carass, brushed through the park, and was rolled over in the
open at Castle Roberts after a grand gallop.

P.S. — The chief events in this very supplementary budget are
a long desultory run in Kildare of nearly two hours' duration on
the last day of November, ending in a kill not far from the starting
point, Copelands Gorse. On the same day, which in the vicinity
of the metropolis was clouded with a haze almost amounting to
fog, Mr. Leonard Morrogh had the misfortune to break his leg by
a fall from a youngish hunter he was trying while jumping that
watery chasm known and dreaded as the Lock of the Bay. His
many friends will be glad to learn that he is going on very well,
though the bone was fractured in two places.

On Saturday the Ward Union men had nearly the largest
assembly of their season so far at Priestown cross roads ; the first
red stag, enlarged by Kilrue Gate, made two of the briefest excur-
sions off the road, and then subsided into an outhouse ; the second
stag was reserved for a bonne louche; but it certainly was a trial
of patience trotting off seven miles or thereabouts at a latish hour
to the distant Garristown Hill, where " London," one of their many
truants this season, had been seen grazing peaceably this morning,
and reported to Charley Brindley. After riding up the eastern
slope of this great landmark, and just as we had topped it, away
went the pack at score into the valley below, which a glance
showed to be watered by many a brook and brooklet. The field
divided into two sections, one keeping much to the right, the
other to the left. The former had the best of it, I think. The
Primatestown brook, however, confronted all, and all had to get
over as best they could— or in and out One or two more sullen,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 115

•

sedgy brooks had to be got over, and here pursuit ceased in many
a case I wot of — in one, at any rate, in which I had a strong
personal interest. Curraha and Kilbrew are now left behind, and
the chase speeds on to Somerville, or its borders, till night came
on, and left the good deer London to roam about a pasture along
with the countless herds of horned stock that graze these prairies
till another, and let us hope an earlier, expedition is sent in quest
of him.

On the same day the Kildare hounds met an average-sized
field at Blackchurch, his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught,
riding his Lawyer horse, being one of the array. Johnstown
Kennedy was the first place drawn — needless to say successfully ;
but the fox, after running for about ten minutes, got to ground by
Collierstown Hill. Dug out, he repeated his former tactics near
the Woolpack Road, but with more success, as he remained in
statu. The little hill of Kilteel was next visited. It has not been
a holding covert for the last few seasons, perhaps because it was
bled too freely before; but to-day it held one of its old traditionary
foxes, who plunged down into the valley at once, nearing Arthurs-
town Gorse, which he did not enter, but wheeled sharp to the left,
as if for Tinode and its wooded ravine ; he did not enter Tinode
either, but made for Glending at once ; and here the first pause
occurred, after a very sharp gallop of nearly eight miles, done in
thirty-five minutes, the line forming something nearly an approach
to the shape of the letter S. Only those who were happy in their
start had a chance of seeing anything of the pack, or riding any-
thing but a very fast and hopeless stern chase. Among the
many who got off badly was his Royal Highness, but he never
gave up persevering till the end (spite of a fall). Among those
who were fortunate in securing front places early, and keeping
them, was Mr. W. Blacker, on his cup winner, Snow-Storm. From
Glending the hunting became somewhat of a potter on to near
Elverstown, over Slieve Rue Hill, when the good fox got to
ground. Arthurstown, drawn late, sent forth a fine fox, who got

n6 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

to ground in Mr. Hendrick's lands at Newtown ; but by this time
there was, as I hear, hardly light to see the fences. By all
accounts this was a magnificent day's sport ; the line taken a
regular old-fashioned one, such as turned-down foxes would hardly
dare to enterprise.

On Friday last Sir David Roche had a first-class gallop from
Fedamore Gorse, thirty-five minutes without pause, Mr. Amcotts,
of the 5th Dragoons, unfortunately killing his hunter. The Duke
of Connaught was unlucky in his visit to Meath last week, the best
gorses of the county not holding on that particular occasion, while
another covert drawn held too many for sport. Thirty-seven
minutes of good pace from Farrenalcock Gorse on the ist (the
intervention of a river rather marred it for some pursuers) was
about the best thing seen in Meath last week, though now I can
only glance at it.

The Kildare hounds had a very fine gallop from Hatfield on
the 4th, of which more anon.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 117

IX.

' A bishop in Bond Street to guns was inclin'd ;
In coping this prelate relax'd his great mind."

A bishop in partibus—Steg hunting— Mr. Dundas on " Gazalier"— Bellinter
harriers — Blue collars — Beltrasna Gorse — Limerick hounds.

THE casualties and misfortunes attributed, and perhaps not un-
fairly, to the unusual blindness of the country at this season,
remind me of an anecdote which may possibly be new to some of
my readers, forgotten by others, and so far half-new. There was
a bishop in Ireland, not quite a hundred years ago, who combined
with his episcopal functions a nice and discriminating taste in
horseflesh. He dearly loved a horse, but what he loved even
more was selling the object of his fond affection — no doubt with
the laudable and philanthropic view of benefiting his laic and
secular brother. The bishop owned a very fine young animal,
who seemed endowed with every qualification that hunter of high
class should be gifted withal, save that accident or misfortune had
robbed him of an eye. Hearing that an English dealer, who had
not been unknown at Market Harborough, had settled in Dublin,
and was giving long prices for young fresh hunters of quality and
substance, he wrote him a glowing picture of his colt, and, without
mentioning price, asked him if he thought such a paragon could
fail to make a hunter, even single-eyed as he was. The dealer's
reply was laconic, and not encouraging ; it ran somewhat thus :
" My lord, in a long experience with hunters, I have invariably

n8 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

found that they require two good eyes in their head and one in
their tail, if that were possible." I think the professional dealer
had the pull of his amateur brother coper on this occasion, though
most men of any experience can recollect an odd one-eyed hunter
of good character for performance, though more steadiness and
watchfulness were required to save the rider from occasional
accident.

"On Monday," says the old ballad of Chevy Chase, if I
remember aright, " they began to hunt when daylight did appear."
The little party I refer to did nothing of the kind; but they
resembled their forebears in two things — first, in that they hunted
the stag ; secondly, in that they did so on Monday ; all other con-
ditions were widely different. Instead of "daylight," read "after
lunch," and so on ; the points of difference being widely in excess
of those of resemblance. The party I wish to introduce to your
readers was a very small group of Ward Union men at the Kilrue
Gate on the 4th inst,, to which number you may add as acces-
sories, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, whom the Wild Irishman
and the Holyhead steamer had only injected into Ireland a few
hours before ; just enough space for hot bath, a breakfast, and
a rapid scurry to the meet in one of Dublin's fast " outsiders."
The quarry of the day was a red stag, and the scene of his enlarge-
ment was a pasture field at Mullinam. From here he bounded
forth, apparently full of " go," and ran an incomplete ring by Mr.
Reid's farm to the fence of the Ratoath Road, which he did not
cross, but turned leftwards towards Fairy House. Here the pace,
which had been rather slow, quickened a bit as the line led over
this famous racecourse, past its ghastly white empty stand, over
the entrance road, and on towards Lagore, till, after a pleasant
run in the form of a loop, the muckle beastie was safely captured
not far from Ratoath ; and as the diurnal rain — which had ceased
for a few hours and given the sun a few moments to dart forth
feeble rays, and the birds some respite from the watery dispensa-
tion in which they busied themselves in preening their wet plum-

H1BERNIA VE NAT 1C A. 119

age — began to descend again unintermittingly, I think a general
dispersion took place. It was a pleasant run enough, over beau-
tiful country, but so holding and water-sodden withal that every
mile was equal to two of ordinary travelling, and the heavy going,
added to the greasiness of the banks, made falls as thick as black-
berries in October, nearly the last fence having almost half-a-dozen
hunting forms extended on its bank at the same time. A lady
came down at an up-bank near the stand of the Fairy House, but
was none the worse for it, and continued pursuit. No one
saw more of the cream of the thing than Mr. Harper, on a fine
brown "M.D." horse, who makes nothing of his rider's welter
impost. The field was nearly the smallest gathering I ever saw
with this pack, but the flooded state of this flat basin had no
doubt a most deterrent effect, not to speak of the menacing aspect
of the day itself.

Let me now, in the dialect of the chase, hark back to a few
hunting passages I was forced to slur over in my last letter, from
want of space or time, or both. The Dunlavin clay in Kildare
was noticeable for a very large field in an out-of-the-way place
nearly a score miles from any railway, and for the galaxy of ladies
to be seen pursuing or viewing. The run lasted nearly two hours,
part of it was fast, and over one of the stiffest bits of country that
ever tried horseflesh; and yet a thorough-bred ci-devant chaser
with an inclination to eagerness at his fences — Gazalier, ridden by
Mr. Dundas — never put a foot wrong, as I hear, in the whole
circuit. Another feature worthy of notice in this fox chase was the
fact of the quarry, when pretty dead beat, seeking asylum in an
outhouse, where " the fox," as the fowl committee of the hunt
know full well, had proved a very hen-harrier and poultry glutton.
He was ejected from this, and soon after run into; for, not to
quote the " engineer hoist of his own petard," he illustrated the
Augustan bard's couplet :

" non lex est justior ulla,

Quam necis artifices arte perire sua. "

120 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

The hunting record of Meath last week, when cut down to
shortest limits, runs thus : On November 28th they found at once
at Philpotstown, had a short ring by Churchtown, and swam into
their fox in the river near Dunleery Bridge. A nice gallop from
Trimbleston to ground at Ballytallion followed. On the 2Qth
they met at the Ball Abbey near Kells, H.R.H. the Duke of Con-
naught being in the field. Boltown and Killallon failed for once
to-day. Clonabraney and its many foxes showed no sport, neither
did Sylvan Park. Friday, December ist, they met at Headfort,
but a shooting party had been there during the week, and the
woods were foxless to-day. Farrenalcock Gorse turned out a good
sharp fox, who ran well for thirty-seven minutes through Bellair
over the Moynalty river, through Kingsfort, till he got to ground
in Challoner's Gorse. Kingsfort Glen held another fox, who ran
by Cherry Mount and Oakley Park in the direction of Farrenal-
cock, till the hounds had to be stopped as the light waned.

There has been a certain amount of dislocation in the hunt-
ing arrangements of this present week, consequent on deaths
and departures. Mr. Gray's neat register of hunting fixtures for
Kildare announced a meet at the Hill of Allen for Tuesday. Mr.
Kelly's (of Navan) well-got-up hunting calendar invited us in the
rosiest-tinted pasteboard to attend the Meath lists at Bellinter on
Tuesday at eleven of the clock. The latter summons was post-
poned till the following day, to enable loyal Meath to pay a part-
ing tribute of respect to his Grace of Abercorn, who was resigning
his high office and leaving the shores of Ireland. The Kildare
meet was abandoned out of sympathy for the family and respect
for the memory of Mr. O'Connor Henchy, who was buried on that
day. Nor, indeed, could the hunt corporation do less, seeing that
many lustrums ago, when the fate of hunting hung in the balance
all over Ireland — I allude to the famine years, when the value of
property was little more than nominal— Mr. O'Connor Henchy,
like the famous Roman dictator, did not despair of the Republic,
but consented, at personal sacrifice, to undertake the presidency

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 121

and hold it till plenty smiled once more on the plague and famine
stricken soil. How ably he acquitted himself of the self-imposed
trust, many in Kildare remember gratefully ; nor were his years of
office barren of high-class sport — quite the reverse. In the senate
he represented his native county ably and efficiently for many
years, resigning this trust only from failing health and the torture
of rheumatism, which completely and incurably crippled a very
athletic and graceful form. His love for hunting was shown by
his constant attendance at all the practicable meets; and till
recently his well-appointed carriage was quite a feature in the
Kildare gatherings, while his house overflowed with hunting
guests, and foxes were seldom absentees from his gorse and wood-
lands.

On Monday the Kildare hounds were due at the neat and
picturesque village of Branoxtown, which is close to the con-
verging parks of Harristown, Giltown, and Sallymount. The
news of Mr. O'Connor Henchy's death had been brought to the
majority by the post of the morning, and it was mooted whether
the hounds should not be sent home. The presence of a great
many strangers decided the master in negativing this suggestion.
The result was a most successful day. Moore Hill was the first
covert drawn, and from its glen some three or four foxes issued
forth, while the hounds got on one whose course leads to the
conclusion that he was the same vulp who had baffled the pack
after a long hunting run from Stonebrook not long ago, for his line
for a long distance was precisely identical, threading his way by
the banks of the Liffey, by the Blackthorns, Geogheganstown,
Ardenode, Mullacash, and finally getting to ground on its banks.
Hatfield Gorse was then visited after a few preliminary explora-
tions, and from it broke a fox, who, it is not unfair to suppose,
was one of last year's good stout tenants, the survivor of several
long and perilous chases. His first point was to the Carlow road,
thence right over the Ballymount Hill into Ballintaggart Gorse,
which did not detain him much longer than I take to narrate the

122 HI BERN I A VENA TIC A.

fact, if so long ; thence down the valley, over the flooded brook
which leads to the water meadows, till there was a check on Rath-
sallagh Fair Green — much appreciated by all who had ridden for
twenty-five minutes over give-and-take land, hill and dale, at the
top of their horses' speed. Slow hunting now took the place of
the fast and furious scurry of the opening scene, and the line
eventually led back to Hatfield.

There was a prudent lull in the fox campaign in the Irish
Shires on Tuesday, for, looking at the list of those who attended
Lord Abercorn's valedictory levee in Dublin, it is evident that the
fields would have been very thinly attended and shorn of many of
their best men. There was, however, one district in Meath where
the armistice was broken, and one fox had the narrowest escape
from being rolled over. It was on this wise : Mr. Preston's
harriers were due at Kilmessan on Tuesday at noon ; but the day
was so soakingly wet, and the downpour so heavy and incessant,
that the hounds did not leave their kennels till one o'clock, when
the master sent them out on the off-chance of a field. No one
turned up on the way to the fixture, nor did it seem probable that
any one would bring a horse out in such teeming torrents ; so
Suter, the huntsman, put the hounds into a field close to the old
castle of Riverstown. At once they dragged on to the edge of
some wild, unenclosed gorse, into which they dashed frantically, a
fox breaking in front of them, and racing up Tara Hill, apparently
bound for Lismullen Woods, but a bend to the left brought him
into Castletown, and thence into the Bridge Woods of Bellinter,
where the hounds were stopped as they were entering Dowdstown
— the regular draw for the next morning with the Meath fox-
hounds. For thirty-five minutes the bitches never had to stoop
for an instant, as the scent was breast high, and they are bred to
race. Only Mr. C. Rothwell, Suter, and perhaps one more, saw
this fine gallop ; for, as bad luck would have it, there was one
keen sportsman at the meeting-place who stayed till he was
drenched, and, after all, missed the run of the season ! An accu-
mulation of unmerited bad fortune !

• HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 123

Wednesday, the 6th, was almost continuously fine, and I
mention the circumstance as something quite phenomenal in this
wet cycle. The Meath hounds were to meet at Bellinter this
forenoon, and those whose way thither lay, as mine did, through
a part of the cream of the Ward Union vale, must have been
struck by the omnipresent traces of the recent rainfall — rivulets
swollen to the proportion of brooks, brooks to the volume of
rivers, while superficial water filled the furrows of the pastures and
made small systems of lakes and ponds on every side. The river
Boyne flows between Bective and Bellinter woods, in a stream not
altogether unlike or unequal to the Thames at Twyford. In
ordinary weather there is a wide margin of pasture land fringing
either bank ; but now a swollen and turbid torrent was rushing
down between the wooded slopes, and had usurped every bit of
intervening land : small chance for a fox if he tried the device,
which was so successful on a former occasion, of swimming across
from Bellinter to Bective.

But the hour is eleven ; carriages are driving up continuously
to the hall door of Mr. Preston's fine mansion ; hacks are being
walked about in numbers, as their owners make " a meridian " of
it inside. The multitudinous peafowl, who had been busy re-
pairing the damages of yesterday, are being scared away by the
red invasion into the surrounding woods. Altogether a fairer or
a more animated scene than a meet at Bellinter, viewed from the
hall steps on a fine day, need not be craved, with its thronged
court-yard, its circular private racecourse in front framed in by
well-grown large-girthed timber, while the historic hill of Tara
overlooks all. It is now a quarter-past eleven, and still there are
lingerers, but the hounds are busy with a cub, whom they have
found near the house, and whom they bring in nearly a complete
circle to the edge of the kennels, where they roll him over.
Dowdstown is the next draw. Few go into the woods with the
pack ; most ride round the park wall on the road, fully calculating
on thirty or forty minutes' covert hunting before a fox can be

124 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

forced into the open on either side. Coffee-housing is at its
fullest tide, when suddenly something or somebody spreads the
news that the hounds have found, run through covert, breasted a
hill, and are now half a mile ahead, pointing for Somerville. We
ascend the hill and see that the news is only too true, the only
consoling feature being that, instead of going straight into Somer-
ville, they are bending up to Lismullen, having run a loop, and
that if we are quick we can probably catch them at Lismullen
Gorse. This programme was carried out to the letter, and we
laggarts came on the track as they were leaving the gorse, just in
time to see a good sportsman, Mr. Dunville, kicked off his hunter
into the very miriest bed of mud to be found, by the playful heels
of a neighbour. We are now crossing the road, and brushing
through the outskirts of Lismullen's extensive park (Sir John
Dillon's), again skirting the gorse, and plunging down at better
pace into the valley below us, till we reach Walterstown, when our
fox turned sharp to the left, and got back, I believe, to Lismullen
Woods. In the evening they went back to Bellinter. I fancy
there was more feasting than fox-hunting on the occasion. Among
the recenter arrivals in Meath for the hunting season is Captain
Low, late 8th Hussars. He was riding to-day a very neat chestnut
son of Conjuror's (the sire of Juggler), dam by Recherche, who
looks like slipping very fast over a country. Those who rode
back via Dunshaughlin found that the Ward Union men had just
ridden through it in pursuit of their stag, who, enlarged at
Rathbeggan, had given them a capital chase, leaving the poor-house
to the left, and thence on by Porterstown and Priestown.

I must say I admire greatly those who have the courage of
their opinions, as the Gallic idiom goes, and in a similar way I
admire those who have the courage of their livery. Now the
costume of the Meath hunt is red with blue collar, and I have no
reason to believe or fancy it has ever been changed or the blue
collar abolished ; yet at the covert side I can only see one man
who sticks to the regulation pattern — Captain Shirley Ball, late

, HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 125

8th Hussars, whose bay mare could make it a very conspicuous
beacon, I fancy, in a quick thing over a big country. Every one
wears the blue at night. Why it is tabooed in the day by most
men passes my power of divination. It is not more peculiar than
the Pytchley white, of which the members of that hunt are not yet
ashamed or tired, I believe.

The week past was not memorable or brilliant in Louth, though
a good fox turned up in Lisrenny on Tuesday, who ran by Louth
Hall and Charlestown, skirted Gudderstown Gorse, and gained
Bragganstown Gorse after an hour and a half's hunting, when fresh
foxes met the hounds, and one was taken on to Charleville.

On the 3oth, after killing a bad fox, they found a second at
Mosney, and came away well by Corballis to Ballygarth, where a
tidal river stopped proceedings, and the rest of the day was spent
between Hilltown and the Carnes, with lots of foxes, but short
goers.

On Friday, the 8th inst, Mr. Kelly, printer, Navan, The Field,
BelVs Life, the Sporting Gazette, the Irish Sportsman and Farmer,
and I know not how many more organs and oracles of sport, pro-
claimed with the trumpet of the mighty press urbi et orbi, that the
Meath vehmgericht would hold its session at Summerhill, at eleven
of the clock a.m., and there issue its writ to its executive officer,
Goodall, against all and sundry foxes in the vicinity, for wicked
conspiracy against the peace and safety of Sir Chanticleer and
Dame Partlett and their innumerable belongings. "Habeas
corpus" ran the writ — we who read between the lines may add
" si possis." Now Summerhill, says an authority on topography,
is a post town in the parish of Larracor, baronry of Lower Moy
Fenragh, county of Meath and province of Leinster, five miles from
Trim, seventeen W.N.W. from Dublin. At that time it contained
49 houses and 331 inhabitants; whether it has increased or de-
creased since the publication of my dictionary of reference
matters not now. It is a neater village than one often comes
across, with a few much better class houses ; as a sheep fair it is,

i26 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

I believe, celebrated beyond its own limits. What is far more to
the purpose just now to relate is the fact of its accessibility from
Dublin by two lines — the Midland Great Western, which lands its
passengers, human and equine, bound for Summerhill at Maynooth
or Kilcock ; while another line, the Meath, brings its hunting
freight to Drumree, some five or six miles distant also. Close by
the village is Lord Langford's fine park, and a straight, wide
avenue, something short of half a mile I should imagine, and with
rather a sharp gradient, brings you to his spacious house, which
overlooks not only almost every acre of the home park, but a very
great extent of the flat pasture vales of Kildare, Meath, and
Dublin also. By a strange coincidence, in a rather open winter
it has fortuned that a Summerhill meet should be associated
with the Arctic powers of frost and snow. The latter prevailed
on the first occasion when his Royal Highness and a large party
attended the fixture ; the former was our antagonist to-day.
Neither, I am happy to say, marred sport, or even considerably
delayed it.

I think to-day the hospitality of lords overrode the punctuality
of princes, for it was nearly half-past eleven o'clock when the
hounds were put into covert, and the woods became vocal forth-
with. Of the first fox I can say nothing ; I believe he went away
somewhere in the Bullring direction. The second broke near the
Kilcock Gate, and ran very sharply over a wide field or two, as if
he meant to go towards Agher, when he wheeled for Drumlargan,
and beat the hounds out of scent. Whether this were caused by
the sudden incubation of a very dense fog, which completely
blotted out the Kildare side of the country from view, I leave to
the discussion of the learned in the philosophy of scent. From
Drumlargan we got into a clearer atmosphere, and could see our
surroundings. Let us take a glance at them. Kildare has sent
a representative body to this assembly. Mr. W. Forbes is on
Darius the Persian, a very handsome blood-like bay horse ;
whether called by that Oriental title because if he says " no " at

0 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 127

a fence his law, like those of his ancestors, " altereth not," I
cannot say, but will only add that on his " going days," which are
the rule, he is a " rum one to follow, a bad one to beat," like the
Laureate's horse. Mr. Percy La Touche is on Gondola, a very
racing-looking mare, selected perhaps from her brook-jumping
powers. Mr. F. Rynd is on Grey Plover, who seemed to have
taken out a patent last year for winning hunters' and farmers' races,
and is none the worse or less temperate for his achievements
between flags. Captain Davis is riding a very thick, strong chest-
nut, a "Blood Royal," I should imagine, and a very perfect fencer.
Among the visitors are Mr. C. Macdonald Morton, long the
popular and successful president of the Westmeath Hunt; Captain
and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Mr. Dundas, Mr. Price, and one or
two more from the 3rd Dragoon Guards ; Captain Graves Sawle,
A.D.C., on a very perfect iron-grey horse ; one or two of the yth ;
and Colonel Frank Forster on the beautiful Greek Fire.

I should have stated that " society " in Ireland was dancing
last night at Emo, Lord Portarlington's beautiful house and park
in the Queen's County the Duke of Connaught being one of the
guests there. The ball was to be followed by a meet to-day
(Friday) on Maryboro's heath ; but a strong contingent forbore
sleep and rosy dreams of fair women, and posted across to
Summerhill — no small tribute to the Meath hounds and the Meath
country.

We are now by Garradice Gorse, which I attempted to
describe, I think, in a previous letter. The fog threatens, but
has not descended on us completely. The find is so quick, there
is hardly an instant to do the needful to girths, etc. The first
narrow bank and ditch are jumped, apparently safely by all, when
in the very second or third field scent fails again, though we are
entering on the land of turf and old pasture ; and, after a slow
drag on as far as Pierstown, the order is given to 'bout ship and
try Garradice again. At this conjuncture of affairs down came
the fog seriously, sights and sounds assuming that grotesque,

128 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

unusual, " Alice in Wonderland " character that fog sometimes
imparts. Home and stables seemed to me the right thing under
the circumstances, and I had gone some distance with this intent,
when I was arrested by the note of a single hound, so completely
drowning those of the pack, that I turned back to the gorse to see
what was to be seen. Lots of foxes, and lots of covert hunting,
but no power could force them to break ; so Mr. Waller gave us
the cue for Beltrasna Gorse, some three or four short miles off.
Again the fog came down like a pall, and as one or two widish
ditches had to be done en route, and as said ditches were pretty
full of water, there were some bathing scenes enacted, and a Triton
or two to be seen disporting themselves in muddy waters. We
are now at the edge of this good gorse, near enough to learn that
it is tenanted, and by no recreant either, for he breaks within five
minutes, pointing as if he meant to give us a gallop to the Grange;
but a second impulse sends him towards Culmullen. Again scent
proves most catchy, and we are at fault. There is a small patch
of " swedes " in front, and Goodall holds them over this, and
regains the thread, which leads within a few hundred yards of
Culmullen Covert. Strange to say, our fox, who had ample leisure,
did not enter it, but turned sharp round, crossed a lane-way, and
appeared verging back to his old haunt. A fault again ! but 'tis
only momentary. And now for ten minutes or fifteen the hounds
carry a fair head as they cross a fine bit of wide vale, watered by
a brook or two ; but as we rise Mullagh Hill, with Kilmore
rectory on our right, scent almost disappears, though, if ever fox
ran over scent-retaining pastures, they were before us here. A
road meets us now ; it is getting duskish ; good-byes are said ;
arrangements made for Enfield to-morrow with the Kildare hounds,
or " Lost London " with the Ward Union ; when the pack, who
won't leave a big pasture they are in, suddenly begin running again,
taking the line past Mr. M'Gerr's house, on to a road. Here
another parting of the few left occurs. But again the pack will
not be denied ; one or two couple have made out the line on the

MISS PERSSE OF MOYOJDE CASTLE

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 129

far side of the road, and are hunting away gaily. Colistoun
Covert is within a field or two now ; but darkness is overtaking us
apace, and the kennels are many miles distant, so at last the pack
is stopped. This run, an incomplete edition of the letter S, would
have been charming had it only been done at a better pace and
with fewer breaks, for a better line of country could not easily be
found. Mr. Waller has to deplore the loss of a very good bitch,
Wishful, who was ridden on.

The staple of hunting "gup" to-day was of an extremely quick
gallop yesterday with this pack, run in a fog so dense that, unless
you were almost on top of the hounds, you had no chance of
seeing the fun. I was not out myself, and can only state that
there seemed a most unanimous consensus that it was " a real
quick thing," and that it took a good horse to stay with hounds at
all. It was somehow on this wise. After some rather meaningless
hunting round Lord Darnley's good gorse of Rathmore, a move
was made to Tullaghnogue Gorse, from which the pack issued
forth "tied" to a good fox. Some sixteen or seventeen started
on very fair terms with the flying hounds ; hardly half-a-dozen
survived to the first check, which was at the end of seventeen
or eighteen minutes as I hear, Mr. Kearsley having held
a front place all through the scurry, with Mr. Hone and perhaps
another, Lord Langford having been equally efficacious in cutting
out the work till his good and gallant grey, landing on a stone or
stump of a tree, rolled right over him, with a stiffening effect which
must have made hunting the next day rather a mixed delight.
A noble lord, whose experience extends over a great many of the
best packs in England and Ireland, told me that in his line he met
one impracticable place, from which he had to turn away, and that
the pause in selecting a more negotiable spot cost him the
remainder of the gallop. The fox, it seems, ran to a high bank
near Medestown, and was wholly unaccounted for afterwards, the
theory being that he had run his foil back and then lain down.
The Kildare run of the same date was unmarred by fog — a fortu-

K

130 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

nate circumstance, as one of the actors informed me that, between
wire and bog, the track was anything but fascinating ; a very fine
show of foxes in the Nine-tree Hill country was the pleasanter side
of the picture.

The show of horseflesh at Summerhill to-day was very attractive.
Weight-carriers are getting very scarce in Ireland, but Captain
Kearney and Messrs. Brown, Dunne, Campbell, Carew, and a few
others, seem to have found the desideratum. There was a smart
Blood Royal four year-old out, who was fencing with all the
hereditary talent of that strain, while Captain Low was on another
son of Conjuror's, " The Crow," who is almost a fac-simile of the
Duke of Connaught's Lawyer horse, and as clever, though perhaps
not quite so powerful. A lady, Mrs. Drake (I hope I may be
pardoned naming names : it is a rare hunting one), who was riding
a very well-trained bay horse, seemed thoroughly at home in the
biggest part of the country. Mr. Murphy, of The Grange, rides
13 st. hunters, almost as well known in the chasing world as in
the hunting, and his grey mare of to-day was no unfit companion
for her stable mates ; while a grey cob ridden by another
Mr. Murphy was an admirable performer, and so was Captain
C. Ponsonby's brown mare.

I hear Lord Waterford has been showing his field very good
sport lately, while Sir David Roche's thirty-five minutes without
a check from Fedamore Gorse is among the best recent triumphs
" down south."

On Saturday, the gth inst, the Kildare hounds — to whom
Saturday ever brings sport, seeing that it draws them from hill
to dale, from gravel to rich loam — met at the little village of New-
town, near Enfield, the outer edge on the west of their domain,
here bounded by Meath eastern and western. Cappagh Gorse, the
first draw, proved for once false to its holding traditions, though
a fox had evidently left it recently. Not so Ballycaghan, the next,
whose huge area seemed lined with foxes. The difficulty of
ejecting the hunted one from so extensive a covert is not small,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 131

and the master was much plagued by late comers, (I, too, cry mea
culfa), who blocked the best avenues for departure. At length,
when every one was half frozen, he broke away— a beautiful rich
red fox — and gave us for our preliminary fence, before we could
get to the park, a very wide bank and ditch to jump. Once over
this, it looked odds on a race to Lara or Courtown ; but something
made our fox turn back suddenly, and nothing came of it but
another long stand at ease while the hounds were dusting him
in the gorse. At last who-whoop sounded gratefully on the ear,
and now we knew we were bound to Courtown, whose extensive
but thin plantations always harbour foxes, though they are easily
scared away by such sounds as an army of hunting men two or
three hundred strong would make clattering down the road on
their way to the draw. To prevent this, Mr. Mansfield implored
the field not to hurry on in spoil-sport fashion before the pack ; but
Courtown and its hospitalities lay in front, and I think the brandy
of cherries and the wine of Xeres were master passions in not
a few breasts just at that moment. " All's well that ends well," and
the draw of Courtown plantations had a goodjinate. Three parts
were drawn in mute silence and expectation. At last there is
a prelude to the overture. " He breaks ! he breaks ! " with Lara
or Straffan in his mind's eye. " He's back ! he's back ! " but not
for long, for ecce fox racing away over the Courtown Park lands,
and with head turned westward, giving us to imagine we were to
gallop back to Ballycaghan. The first fence proves unlucky
to some, and there are one or two stiff up-banks next. Then our
fox turns leftwards, over those pleasant flat pastures which are
mainly divided by ditches and small banks, over which you can
send your hunter at twenty miles an hour. A very pleasant phase
of hunting was this sailing away over small brooks and shingles
with the conviction that the far side was " all right." We are now
within a few fields of Laragh Covert. We have crossed a couple
of by-roads, if not three, and now there is a slight pause by some
cottages — Baltracey is the name of the place, I believe ; the

i32 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

hounds have rather overshot the mark. Will Freeman has them
right in less time than I take to write the fact, and from this point
we hunt on steadily and at fair pace parallel to the Naas and
Kilcock road, when our fox again inclines to the right slightly.
We cross one of those drainage canals which, fortunately for us,
have soft, sloping sides, down which we slide into the watercourse,
to climb up the far side ; and now, when we look up to take bear-
ings, we find ourselves passing a semi-vacant gaunt-looking house,
which we know to be within a few hundred yards of Mount
Armstrong. Two or three furzy fields (Hodgestown is the local
name) and as many fences bring us to the outskirts of Sir Gerald
Aylmer's fine park of Donadea. There is a lodge gate a few score
yards down the road, which will bring you down a long straight
avenue to the castle woods. If you would fain see the end of
a good straight fox, who-whoop, they have him ! They have
earned him well, for scent has not been breast high, and I don't
think they can have run him less than eight or nine miles from
find to finish. I talked just now of two or three hundred horse-
men. I do not think there were nearly so many out to-day,
though the field was large, and there were not a few visitors from
Limerick, Cork, Dublin, Meath, Gal way, etc., at the rendezvous.
Lord Oranmore represented the latter county, Mr. Rose did the
same for Limerick. Grey was decidedly the winning colour to-day.
Sir J. Higginson went in his old form on a grey ; Mr. R. Kennedy
was on a grey, so was Mr. W. Blacker ; but few greys or hunters
of any colour could have performed more beautifully than Major
Dent's fine lengthy grey and Mr. Robertson's well-known hunter
of the same hue. The Hon. Captain Rowley, Mr. A. Macneil,
and Mr. Chapman represented Meath in the fore front of the fray,
and Captain R. Mansfield kept his place very near the pack all
through. The Inniskillings were in great force and form, and so
were the 3rd Dragoons.

The Coolattin Club is a small and very select corporation,
devoted mainly to whist and fox-hunting, while French cookery

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 133

and matured Chateau Margaux are not within the table of pro-
hibitions. Lord Fitzwilliam houses the club, and gives them other
privileges. Carlow and Wexford find foxes. The club was in
session last week, but so far have not, as I learnt, had much sport.
Tuesday, their opening day, was diluvial.

The meet of the Queen's County hounds on Friday, at Mary-
boro' Heath, led to little sport : the effervescing loyalty of the
populace, which broke into shouting and hurrahing, was fatal to
finding foxes early. Cremorgan in the afternoon held as usual,
but scent was catchy, and one or two hard-riding men would not
let them work out their problem, so the sport was not of a high
order.

There is again breach and interruption of hunting arrangements
in Kildare, owing to the sadly premature death of Mr. Archbold,
of Davidstown, last Saturday, after a very short illness — typhoid
fever. Tuesday's meet at the eighteenth milestone is consequently
transferred to Friday, while Wednesday's fixture is for the kennels.

I recollect writing about a meet at Davidstown, Mr. Archbold's
residence, last year. Few could then have imagined that his
young life, so full of vigour and promise, would have terminated
so abruptly. The mourning for Mr. Archbold — I do not mean
the perfunctory livery thereof regulated by degrees of consan-
guinity— will be very extensive among all classes, specially in the
counties of Kildare, Wicklow, and Carlow, where he was best
known as a landlord, a friend, and a neighbour — known only to be
beloved. As a sportsman his loss will be immensely felt, for so
great was his influence that fox preservation of the strictest
character became a fashion and a rule all over his estates. He
was a fine rider to hounds, notwithstanding his height and weight ;
a first-rate judge of horses ; a naturalist by taste, experiment, and
observation ; and, for the last few seasons he was a master of
harriers. Sir John Esmonde, another good friend to foxes and
fox-hunting, died rather suddenly in Wexford about the same
time.

i34 HIBERNIA YEN AT 1C A.

X.

Dark, dreary, and dull was the sky,
With rain clouds the heavens were big. "

Traps and Trappers — West Meath — Kilbrew — Mr. Reeves' oyster beds and
harriers — The Marquis of Ormonde — Straflan Bridge.

THERE has been no scarcity of foxes this year in Ireland, with
a few notable exceptions. The cubbing season was not a blood-
thirsty one, for the simple reason that scent for several weeks
was at zero, but no master of hounds that I have heard of com-
plained of not finding game, even if he was denied the capability
of hunting it. Since cubs attained their majority the course of
hunting, unlike that of true love, has run in the smoothest
of currents, and though I know of two blank days, I can hardly
localize a third in the whole of hunting Ireland. The season was
most favourable to vixendom ; when foxes were wanted they were
turned down, and the aliens or naturalized vulps thrive like the
natives, and yet the trapping curse, like the trail of the serpent, is
over us all, and saps fox-hunting in its very foundations. One of
the worst features of the case is this, that these vulpecidal engines
have now been sown so broad-cast over the island, and familiarity
has so vulgarized them, that many a proprietor of large acres, who
had set a bad example in bringing trappers into his park and
woodlands, and who subsequently felt anxious to neutralize the
mischief he has done the fox-hunting interest in his county and
vicinity, would be unable to lay the spectre he had invoked, or call

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 135

in the traps which had strayed or been stolen in the course of his
raids on rabbits. Under these circumstances, of course, there
is less restraint than ever in the manner of trap setting. Farm
labourers who have tasted the sweets of hare, rabbit, and
even pheasant catching by this simple and inexpensive process,
will not easily be induced to abandon it. The snare is not
primarily set for " the fox " save by a few exasperated individuals
who fancy they have been overlooked, perchance, in the distri-
bution of fowl money ; but if the fox is caught, vice some more
saleable or edible quadruped, tant pis for the fox ; he is knocked
on the head and put out of sight, while the trap is reset in hopes
of better luck next time. These observations are elicited by the
fact that out of three foxes found recently in the covert of a well-
known fox presever on the same date, two were maimed by traps,
and unable to take their part when hunted ; while the third proved
a good straight runner. It is well known that the covert owner is
a foe to trapping. Whence then these tripod foxes ? Simply
from traps being common in the neighbourhood, and in such
general use, that foxes would be more dexterous than nature made
them if they managed to escape them altogether. But not only
are traps common from the causes I mention ; they have become
"a leading article " in country shops, and it seems now as natural
and as little peculiar to purchase a trap as a hand-saw or a ten-
penny nail.

Let us now glance at Western Meath, where it is pleasant to
find that Mr. Montague Chapman's well-directed zeal and energy
in the cause of sport have not been unrewarded.

On the 4th they met at Lord Greville's residence, Clonyn
Castle, and found three foxes in the coverts at the back of the
new castle. Settling to one, they followed him towards Drumcree
into Mooretown, where he did not hang long, but broke again
and almost retraced his steps, finishing in a rabbit burrow.
Kiltullagh Plantations held another, but the hounds ran into him
almost immediately. Another, found in Williamstown Gorse, they

136 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

killed before he could get into Rockview. A Reynella fox ran a
ring to Clonlost, when darkness stopped hunting.

On the yth (Thursday) they were at Baronston, and found
three foxes in the Bog Covert. One took them past the fine
mansion, through the lands of Tristenagh Abbey into Sonna,
where he was viewed by the new gate. The Plantations here
did not detain him a moment, and he was next forced through
Kildollan Gorse over Slanemore, a grassy elevation, where the
pasture is old and sound, and the going as good as any in West-
meath. Here, however, as he was passing Ballyote Chapel, a cur
dog came on the scene. A long check ensued, and perhaps the
most promising run of the season was marred. Frewin Hill
Gorse was next drawn. Here they found at once, and ran
straight to the shores of Lough Owel, where their fox wheeled
to the left, ran through Mount Murray, and thence made Clon-
hugh, where the earths were open, and a good fox respited.

On the 9th they were at Moyvaughly, where they found a fox,
who did not stand up any time before them. Mosstown, which is
always well preserved, held a brace, and the hounds went away
gaily with one, who led them to the top of Knockast Hill, the
highest ground in this neighbourhood, which was smothered with
fog that seemed to kill scent ; at any rate, the fox was not
accounted for.

On the nth they were at Drumcree, the residence of General
the Hon. Leicester Curzon Smythe, whose good gorse (a reminder
always to myself of an extremely pleasant gallop right into Meath)
has just attained holding growth after having been cut. The find
here was very quick, and was followed by a capital thirty minutes,
ending at Windtown, where the fox got to ground. Hopes Gorse
held a second, who started over a beautiful line and ran nicely
for a couple of miles, when he suddenly disappeared in a coney
hole, when the odds seemed in favour of his going on to the hill
gorse at Knock Ion.

On Monday a beautifully clear, diaphanous atmosphere showed

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 137

everything in nature at its very best, and revealed objects which
fog, haze, and rain clouds had obscured for months. The Ward
Union stag-hounds met at Norman's Grove, one of the fixtures
nighest to the metropolis, some nine miles (Irish) distant, and
the assemblage collected there was one of the largest which this
pack has had since the season opened formally at Ashbourne. All
Ireland was more or less represented there, and though Meath
held out the tempting bait of Grange Geath Gorse in the forenoon,
and Hussey's Gorse after luncheon, not a few threw in their lot
with the stag, among them Lord Langford and Mr. A. Macneil.
The Garrison sent gunners, riflemen, and staff men to the fray — red
soldiers, blue soldiers, and green — and Dublin of course poured
in a flood-tide of its sporting citizens. Enfield, who gave perhaps
the best gallop of the season last year (in some judgments), was
the quarry, and he got his liberty at Nutstown, whence he bounded
on by the Caulstown Brook, over the Dunboyne road into Ballin-
tray, thence by Priestown in a line parallel to the Ratoath and
Dublin roads, across the road by the gorse covert of Kilrue, and
thence via the Moulden Bridge into Ratoath village, where he ran
the road for a short time in view, and many who had gone well up
to this point, and fancied the cream of the day had been fairly
skimmed, turned their horses' heads homewards. A few, how-
ever, stayed on to the end, and had a rattling finish up to
Bournestown, the last part, as I hear, being very fast indeed.
Among this division were Lord Clanmorris, Mr. D'Arcy, Mr.
Hone, and Captain Graves Sawle. I hear the timers made the
run an hour and a half.

The night which succeeded this beautiful, soft, balmy Monday
was memorable for one of the heaviest rainfalls of a watery
season, the gushes of rain seeming to be propelled from hydrants.
" The rain a deluge poured " in Ireland as in the " Bay of Biscay
O," and fortunate were those who were well housed during its
fury.

By eight or nine o'clock a.m. of the i2th, all traces of the

138 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

storm had vanished. True, flocks of sea-gulls, driven in from the
coast, dotted the green fields and roads, and everything had a
flooded look, while furrows and runnels were brimming to overflow.
Tuesday was "beautifully mild and bright, and the sun shone out
gaily. The Meath fixture for the day was Kilmoon Police
Barrack, a solitary little fortalice or block house, in a wide green
valley, bounded by the gentlest of grassy elevations. It is some
fifteen or sixteen miles (English) from Dublin, not quite so much
from Navan, a long distance from town or railway station ; so that
there was little of that miscellaneous crowd which curiosity and
a fine day muster whenever a popular hunting fixture is very
accessible from a capital by rail or road. But, on the other hand,
it was far from a small gathering. Louth sent many of her sons
and daughters thither (admirably mounted, too) ; Meath turned
out strong ; while among the visitors were Captain and the Hon.
Mrs. Candy. Time, however, fails me to tell of the beauty and
fashion congregated in this lonely wayside spot, now bright with
colour and full of life and motion ; of Mrs. Dunville's indefatigable
and charming pair of bays ; of a sporting tandem ; of a small
string of thoroughbreds owned by Messrs. Saurin and Reynolds ;
for we are under way already to a small stick covert, with a little
bit of plantation at one end, on the side of a grassy hill, which,
though not covering very much more than a rood, has always
been full when I have happened to see it drawn. To-day was not
doomed to be exceptional. After a very little forcing, a fox broke
away in the Ashbourne direction, running straight for a short
distance, when he inclined to the left, and was presently lost,
giving us to understand very plainly that scent was uncommonly
coy to-day. A second fox had gone away from the faggots in
another direction ; but it was no use dragging after him, so the
task before us was to get back into the lane-way by which we had
come into the covert field. A thorny up-bank, which required a
hunter's instinct where to place hind and fore legs, interposed
itself, and afforded a good deal of excitement and fun ; but at last

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 139,

we are in the aforesaid lane-way, and trotting on to the wooded
height of Kilbrew, on the far side of which, by a well-known
brook, lies another stick covert, which I think Mr. Waller only
made last season, and which we found well tenanted on the last
occasion. How many it held to-day is to me an unknown number.
We went off with one over huge grass pastures in the direction of
Reisk Gorse first, when he turned to the right, and gave us the
benefit of a lane for nearly a mile ; then he went through the
grove and shrubberies of Green Park, turned once more down
the vale, and, I should think, joined his scared brethren in
Kilbrew ; at any rate, after a mile he was given up, and Corbalton
Woods were now the scene of exploration — a quick find in the
wood next the Navan road, a canter across the park ; another for
some distance along the Dunshaughlin road sidings, then a mile
or so more to the right of Corbalton, and that is all I can say of
the day's performance, which certainly was most unequal to the
grand theatre that witnessed it.

Is the Turkish question likely to lead to a solution of the
oyster difficulty ? Is the Danube to enrich us with sturgeon flesh
and caviar ? The lines of Virgil occur as I ponder these things :

" Quam quibus in patriam ventosa per gequora vectis,
Pontus et ostriferi fauces tentantur Abydi."

Had the bride of Abydos an oyster bed for her dowry ? or had the
Roman patricians eaten them all ? I would transfer the reader's
mental eye to the banks of the Shannon, and by a rural burying-
place where a head-stone tells the tragic fate of the Colleen Bawn.
Here Mr. Carey Reeves, rich already in salmon weirs, has enriched
his foreshores with well-cropped oyster beds of the green-fin
species, which, strange to say, are much affected by the gastronome
in Ireland and France, while his brother contemns them in
England. There are also some importations of oysters from
Arcachon, but the green-fin bivalve is his staple. Along these
banks of the great tidal river roam many good stout hares ; and,

1 40 HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A.

as fox-hunting does not flourish much in the county Clare, Mr.
Reeves finds his useful pack of harriers attended by large fields —
as for instance on the yth inst, when a goodly company, com-
prising Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, Mrs. Phelps and her boy, Mr.
E. Kelly, Mr. J. Bennett, Mr. O'Donnell, Major Gore, Mr. J.
O'Donnell, Mr. Bulger, and Mr. Burke, etc., had a capital run
from Tiervarna by Burrane House and Knock Wood ; the last
part extremely good, nearly three miles without pause, and two
more gallops afterwards, less brilliant, though a kill crowned the
last from Carandota.

On the 1 3th the Kildare hounds had a quasi by-day at the
Kennels, which are under the shadow of the palace which
Strafford erected for himself, now in ruins, but ruins which attest
the " thoroughness " of the planner. Though a by-day, and out
of the regular roster — which, as I remarked in my last letter, was
interrupted by the death of Mr. Archbold — it was notified to all
the members of the hunt by cards, to the public by the voice of
the press. This circumstance, and the central position of Naas,
drew a very large concourse to the meeting-point; H.R.H. the
Duke of Connaught, attended by his equerry, Captain M. Fitz-
gerald, being among the visitors of the day — a list which also
included Lords Oranmore and Clanmorris, the Hon. T. Scott,
Captain Graves Sawle, Mr. A. Macneil, Mr. Skeffington Smythe,
Mr. Rose, several of the 3rd Dragoon Guards and Inniskillings,
of the Royal Horse Artillery, yth Dragoon Guards, and 4th Regi-
ment of the line. I have seen much larger fields on similar
occasions, but there were quite enough to mar sport or to enjoy it,
if the elements of sport had only been forthcoming.

Osberstown Gorse, to which I have before introduced your
readers, looked as large and luxuriant as ever. The flat country
round was much more suggestive of snipe-shooting than hunting,
after our recent watery experiences, but within the inclosure
drainage had made the fox's haunt dry, and comfortable, and
warm. The hounds soon told us of one at home, and, after

HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A. 141

much bullying, a splendid specimen of his race, of the richest
mahogany hue, and white-tagged as to his brush, emerged into
the open, but after a very brief excursion returned to his strong-
hold, to be again expelled after a long similar process. Another
excursion towards Old Town followed, when, scared by some
object or other on the canal bank — we may imagine a native
bargee — our fox ran the gauntlet of the field, while one or two
vainly endeavoured to cut him off from the gorse, but he made
good his vantage-ground. After another half-hour of vain effort
to force him into the open a third time, he was given up, while
we crossed the Liffey by a ford, and drew up at Gingerstown
Gorse, an unenclosed wild patch of furze ; and having explored
it as well as the neighbouring covert of Castle Keely fruitlessly,
we were sent on to Landenstown, where search was equally futile.
Bella Villa held not, and Kerdiffstown, the never-failing, failed
us in our hour of need, while Palmerstown, its neighbour, followed
suit. The trail of the serpent may have been over them, the trail
of the fox was not ; by this time light was waning, and a general
dispersion took place. Mr. Mansfield lost a good servant's horse
near Osberstown, who broke his leg in galloping into a blind
ditch. To-day's proceedings reminded me of the still-existing
custom in England of beating the bounds of a parish. We beat
the bounds, I should think, of several. This black-letter day is
the first serious check which the Kildare hounds have experienced
this season.

The Newbridge harriers had, I hear, a very good thirty minutes
last Monday from Mr. Coffey's lands, at Faircross, to Silliot Hill
Gorse, with an outlying fox, who took his pursuers over a trying
line, which weeded out all but some three or four sportsmen,
among whom were the huntsman, Mr. Knox, R.H.A., and Mr.
Medlicott.

Sport in Louth has been of a most mediocre order during the
last ten days or so. Thus, on the 5th, they visited Duffy's Cross,
and found plenty of foxes in Corballis, but between getting headed

1 42 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

and so on, they yielded no sport. Bragganstown furnished a brace,
one of whom gave only a ringing pursuit.

On the yth, meeting at Townley Hall, Dowth Hall was the
first draw, and it produced a brace of foxes, who got to ground
very soon. Townley Hall and Mellifont were empty to-day.

On the Qth they were at Barmeath, which did not hold either
a fox or foxes, neither did several gorses about Johnstown. A
wild gorse, however, near Drumcar, was tenanted. The fox ran
into the park, and got to ground near the house. Charleville,
after this, turned out a smart fox, who ran for seventeen minutes
into Williamstown, when he, too, got to ground.

I fancy "These Bonds," in esse or posse, real or simulated, have
rather stayed the plague of testimonials from which we in Ireland
have suffered infinitely less than you did on your side of the ditch.
Testimonials in Ireland have for the most part been genuine
embodiments of gratitude, admiration, or esteem ; or, perhaps, all
three combined. Hence it was a pleasure to your scribe to record
last year the presentation of a handsome piece of plate by the
Curraghmore hunt to the Marquis and Marchioness of Waterford.
It is an equally agreeable task to tell this season of the gratitude
of the members of the Kilkenny Hunt to the Marquis of Ormonde,
which found expression this week in a congratulatory address on
his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth Grosvenor, and took con-
crete form in a beautifully modelled golden fox — the symbol of
the royal sport, which, but for the noble marquis's purse and
prestige, would very probably have become an unknown art in
the county of its birth (in Ireland). It is no secret that Lord
Ormonde's liberality tided the Kilkenny Hunt Club over financial
difficulties which looked very menacing at one time. It is pleasant
to find that recent success has not dulled the recollection of good
deeds. The Marquis of Waterford read the address. The pre-
sentation took place in the picture gallery of the castle, where a
long line of ancestral Butlers illustrate the history of Ireland,
which they often moulded. The Kilkenny hounds, whose tri-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 143

umphal progresses I have frequently recorded, had, I hear, a
bright day on Wednesday last, when a good fox took them from
Garryricken (a covert of Lord Ormonde's), by Killmory and Nine-
mile House, through Butler's Wood, on to the foot of Sleivenamon
Hill, where pursuit was stopped. Another run from Davis's
Gorse, though far less straight, ended in a kill. " The Rock " on
Friday revealed a good supply of foxes, who will probably give a
good account of themselves by-and-by, though their education is
only inchoate at present.

The on dit is that the Earl of Clonmel has accepted the
presidency of the Kildare hounds, which would be only a case
of interrupted succession, his father having mastered this pack
long and successfully. Venerie and woodcraft are in this family
a tradition. Among those who have suffered severely in limb
in their pursuit of mimic war is Mr. J. O'Donnell, of Trugh
Castle, Limerick, who, I regret to learn, sustained a compound
fracture of his left arm and dislocation of both joints when
hunting with Sir David Roche's hounds at Balinagarde. Mr.
Morrogh's stud of hunters were sold on Thursday last in Dublin ;
but it is not impossible that the end of the season may see Mr.
Morrogh riding again, as his broken leg is doing wonderfully well.

"Water, water everywhere" (I cannot add "and never a drop to
drink," for the country I write of is Ireland, and Ireland has never
hitherto suffered from a lack of potables) — brooks overflowing
their banks ; pastures turned into mere ; the sidings of the roads,
where not under water, in a semi-quagmire condition, as one sees
a well-trampled fair green become after a few hours of rain and
bullocks ; but there is little to wonder at, for at the covert side
to-day there was unanimity of opinion on one subject at least — that
no one had ever been out in heavier or more continuous rain in
these latitudes than to-day ! Vain were leggings, vain were covert
coats. As in fences, so in wraps and devices to keep out rain,
there is always some weak or unguarded spot through which the
insidious moisture is soon found percolating ; and it is almost

i44 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

impossible to watch or guard the entire man in such a downpour
as to-day. Why, in an hour tops were as full of water as they
could be, each foot enjoying the benefit of a cold tub for hours.
I once recollect a very smart sportsman, whose get-up was a thing
of beauty, telling a field who were condoling with him on having
to ride home a long distance, after he and his horse had been
swimming across either a river or canal, that his nether man was
not even damp ; " for, you see, my boots and breeches fit so very
perfectly that it is mechanically impossible that a drop could get
in." No one dare affirm anything of the kind here. Men,
horses, and even the few ladies who ventured out, had that
poulemouillee look as if they had been swimming rivers and canals
for some time. My tale is of the Kildare hounds at Straffan
Bridge on Saturday, the i6th inst. — a beautiful scene in fine
weather ; but, with an horizon of the narrowest limits, and rain
blackening the air, scant leisure remains to admire even the most
picturesque object. I fancy most people smiled an internal smile
as they saw that the hunting madness had been pervasive enough
to draw a very large assembly to the meeting-place. Every one,
whatever they felt, put a cheerful courage on, and no one railed
at the elements, no matter how pulpy, draggled, and miserable
their sensations might have been. A glance at our field here !
and, as the ladies have been very heroic in braving not merely
the rain and water, but their unbeautiful effects, let us do all
honour to le courage malheureux. Five were riding nearly all this
fearful day — Lady Annette La Touche, Mrs. Adair, Mrs. Langrishe,
Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Morris. Would that they could have been
rewarded with a shprt, sharp gallop, to carry away some pleasant
memories of this most pluviose day ! Driving on a hack car were
the Hon. Mrs. Barton and Mrs. St. Leger Moore. The usual
Kildare field was increased by a good many visitors, among whom
was his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught (attended by his
equerry, Captain M. Fitzgerald), Mr. J. G. Adair (from the Queen's
County), Captain R. Barton (late 9th Lancers), Mr. A. Macneil and

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 145

the Messrs. Murphy from Meath, Mr. Longfield (who was riding
that well-known mare Miss Brayley). Lord Oranmore was on a
very hunting-like grey, while his second string was a powerful
chaser, who had done well in the land of the Gaul ; Major Dent
on his good-looking grey, was the only 7th Dragooner. The Innis-
killings were represented by Captain Bloomfield alone, I think;
the 2oth Hussars by Captain Irwin; the Staff sent Captains Sawle,
Crosbie, and De Montmorency; the R.H.A., Colonel Sarsfield
Green, Mr. Knox, Mr. Aitken, and one or two more. But there is
no time for observation or gossip ; the hounds are working through
Lodge Park. In ten minutes or rather more they found a good-
looking fox in the long clump by the river, whom they hunted from
plantation to shrubbery, from shrubbery to plantation, till a check
took place in a sort of nursery to the walled-in kitchen garden. I
believe the vulp did his best to break away ; but the rurals, who
could not work on farms such a day as this, were in a cordon all
round, so we lost all chance of a run, and soon after lost our fox
too. Now commences the only bit of fun vouchsafed to us hitherto :
a large part of the field are inclosed in a place from which the
only extrication is by jumping a quickset hedge and ditch, while
the remainder of the sporting world of the day look on and
criticise. It was rather amusing for five minutes ; no one actually
came down, though a back or two looked in danger, and hind
legs were dropped dangerously short. The rest of the day was
spent (or mis-spent, according to some versions) in drawing vainly
about three parts of Straffan Coverts, Castle Dillon, Boston,
Cullen's Wood, and Bishopscourt. By about three o'clock rain
ceased, and for an hour nature looked lovely, the evening lights
bringing out the landscape strongly, as varnish does on canvas.
The field meantime received constant accessions of sportsmen and
sportswomen who had been sane enough to reserve themselves for
dry weather.

The Friday previously was anxiously looked forward to by those
who take their pleasure in the green fields of Kildare and Meath.

146 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

The former pack met at the eighteen-mile stone, and went first
to Silliott Hill, where a fox got headed, and showed no sport
afterwards. In Pimchestown Gorse they found a second, who
was followed — not hunted — over Punchestown (where the brook
watered a gallant captain who has turned his sword into an
agricultural or pastoral implement, and also received in its embrace
a very hard-riding dragoon) ; thence by Tipper and Craddocks-
town and Killashee, into Rathascar, and so on to Herbertstown,
whence pursuit was abandoned.

In Meath, Larracor was the meeting-point, Trotter's Gorse
the first draw. It did not hold; but Moneymore gave them a fox,
who ran by Rathmolyon, and was believed to have jumped into a
conservatory, for the hounds made nothing of him afterwards.

The Ward Union men had another good day last Wednesday,
the stag taking them past Dunshaughlin from a point near the
Ten-mile Bush Farm, and was captured somewhere near Drumree.

While sport has been so scant in the midland and eastern
portions of the island, it is refreshing to hear of something better
in the south. Lord Doneraile's hounds met at Miltown Castle on
this occasion, and, after putting one fox to the ground and walking
some distance over a fine line with another, went back to try
Boulard a second time, when they got away close to their fox, and
took him by Curraghglass and Gibbings Grove, where he bent
round for his original place, and saved himself in a drain. Time
forty-five minutes ; horses beaten off.

From Bowen's Court, on another day, they had a sharp
seventeen minutes' race to ground, and then a long run with good
bits in it right into Sir David Roche's country, the fox getting to
ground in the main earths at Darragh.

I see the subject of the increase or decrease of game in
Ireland is being discussed in your columns just now, and traps
and trapping are assigned their proper place in accounting for the
scarcity in some districts which would otherwise have abounded
in fur and feather. Hares are just now the desideratum, and hares

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 147

are minishing most alarmingly. As a set-off, however, I may
remark that on Saturday last, while the Kildare hounds were on
their way to Irishtown Gorse, I saw in one of Major Barton's
large pastures more hares than I think I ever saw in a single field
in England or Scotland.

The west wind brings a tale of better sport in the west than
we have been favoured with in the east and midlands. This is an
epitome of Mr. Burton Persse's " good things " since his hounds
resumed hunting : On the 4th, twenty-three minutes, at great pace,
over a fine line from Carra Gorse, in the Loughrea country ; three
besides the master having about the best of it. On the gth, a
brilliant thirty minutes over a fine line from Castle Taylor, and
a hunting run to follow. On the izth, a good gallop in the after-
noon, which darkness stopped in the Athenry country. On the
1 4th they were in the Eyre Court country, and raced down a
fox from Chesterfield Gorse in fifteen minutes, rolling him over in
the open. A bad fox in the evening gave them an hour of slow,
twisting hunting. On the i6th they found a good fox at Raford,
and killed him in the open, after a capital twenty-five minutes,
interrupted by only one slight pause ; while Carnakelly set them
going again, and gave the field rather more than enough to do.

P.S. — Scent has returned to our fields. The Kildare hounds
had a capital day from the Downshire on Monday. The Meath
rejoiced in three good runs that day — forty-six minutes, twenty- six
minutes, and twenty-three minutes, the last ending in a kill. On
Tuesday they had one of the most extraordinary long persevering
pursuits that any pack ever enjoyed. It began at the Poor-house
Gorse, Dunshaughlin, at about 11.30 a.m., and finished with the
death of the fox at Parsonstown (not in the King's County) at about
2.30 p.m., having been, uninterruptedly sustained during those
hours ; while bits of it were fast enough, and it was all over grass.
I must postpone details till my next letter.

i48 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

XL

"Well-nigh three hours the open kept,
As stout a fox as ever slept."

Stony Batter and mud batter — Poor-house Gorse run — Rathbeggan stag-ch
Garradice — United Cork, etc., etc.

IF we are to believe high authority, no verses can live or please
the public ear for any length of time that are written by water-
bibbers :

" Nulla placere diu nee vivere carmina possunt
Qua3 scribuntur aquse potoribus."

" Who water drink, in water think ;
Good wine's the sap of poet's ink."

And yet, all this notwithstanding, the laureate of the great games
of Greece tells us that water is the best thing out, apiarov p*v vSup.
Lord Palmerston's gloss upon this was about on a par with many
of his witty and wise sayings. The story goes that Mr. Glad-
stone, who had just returned from the Ionian Isles, was expatiat-
ing upon the " curious old wines," strong of resin and sulphur,
which he had recently been quaffing, when his chief struck in
with the remark, " Well ! I now can understand Pindar's eulogy
of water." Without daring to detract one iota from the great
element in the composition of all things, I may be permitted to
remark that just now there is far too much en evidence for hunting
purposes. The roads overflow with it; the fields are partially

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 149

turned into lakes ; the pastures, with their beaten-down grasses,
look as if a heavy roller had passed over them ; and the grass
land in the rich vale of Dublin and Meath rides so heavy, that no
one whose figure does not in some measure resemble the New-
market standard has a chance of seeing the hounds if they run
fast and long. How, in the old O.U.B.C. days, one used to
envy the Titans in flannel who pulled five and seven in "the
'Varsity " ; how one longed for their expanse of chest and swelling
biceps ! Now, if one has to ride at all, the ambition is all the
other way. Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt ! oh that
my millionth or billionth grandsire (according to Darwin) in
the aeons gone by had transmitted to me the prehensile sinewy legs
(how lovely they would look in tops !) and the long, thin, flexible
arms of the Simise ! But then perhaps the horse would be too
slow for such ambitions, and a pterodactyl would be essential for
the requirements of scent and pace in slime. Footprints in the
sands of time, indeed ! We are daily making our mark in the
pastures of green Erin, writing our characters too in a fashion
that will last for many a day. Mud fever and scarred legs have
of course appeared in stables, but I do not think the visitation
has been so general or severe as in former years ; perhaps we
understand the treatment better than of yore. If any one is
ambitious of trying an experiment in mud baths and their con-
sequences on cloth and horse's coat, I will tell him the best plan
I know of for his operations. Emerging from Arran Quay in
Dublin, and facing northwards, you will in a few hundred yards
find yourself in a street not unknown in song, called "Stoney
Batter." A quarter of a mile further will bring you into com-
parative ruralism, and here " mud batter " begins, and for three or
four miles your progress is through a deep liquid slush canal,
fortunately not more than a few inches in depth, whose bottom is
so uneven that with every jolt of your springs or peck of your
horse the filthy liquid flies upwards, to settle on coat, hat, or face,
or all three. This is the main road to Dunboyne, and I believe

150 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Trim also. Those with local knowledge avoid this Mala Via,
making a considerable detour through the Phoenix Park. Those
in a hurry to catch hounds, say at Dunboyiie or Norman's
Grove, may easily fall into the trap. For the benefit of those
who like to present one side of their tops moderately clean at
a meet, and to be recognizable by their acquaintances, I mention
the abomination.

Monday, the i8th inst, was, in the language of the country,
a soft day, though I am not sure that enough rain fell to warrant
the epithet fully; but, if not falling, it was in suspense, and its
descent was little more than a question of hours. A small field
met the Ward Union pack at Kilrue, the 3rd Dragoon Guards
forming the staple of the soldier element, and they sent a coach-
load; the red-coats might nearly be counted on one hand, and
the visitors did not much exceed a score. Among them was
Lord Clanmorris (on a racing chestnut), Captain Fitzgerald
(on a young brown horse), Mr. Murphy (on Sapling),' the Hon.
Captain Rowley, and Captain M'Clintock Bunbury. The sport
was not so good as usual. A good-looking red deer, enlarged on
Mr. Reid's land at Ballymacoll, showed a strong penchant for
road work for a bit, running short circles till past Ballintry, when
he struck off towards Mulhuddart, inclined slightly to the right till
he reached a place called " The Main," and then went off in a bee
line till he gained soil and sanctuary at donee Bridge, the last
mile having been done at good pace, and crossing a couple of small
brooks — or ditches which had the pretentions of brooks to-day.
The stream at Clonee was in flood, and had overflowed its banks
considerably, so it was no easy task to save the quarry, as
the pack were swimming round him; and, even after they had
been collected together on terra firma, it took nearly half an hour,
two colley dogs, and a lasso to effect a capture. In compliance
with the wishes of the farmers, no second deer was enlarged.

The week began well in Kildare. The county pack met in
Blessington village, when, notwithstanding the invitation of a

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 151

lovely da)', which succeeded a night of rain, the attendance was
very small indeed. The customary programme is to go from the
main street of Blessington through a spacious avenue (which once
led to a lordly mansion that the lava flood of '98 did not spare)
into Downshire Park, a large walled-in grassy space, of which only
a small portion is fringed by trees, where the surface is broken up
into a curious succession of hills and hillocks, on the slopes of
one of which a gorse covert was planted long ago, and has given
Kildare a series of as good and famous runs as any she embraces
in her area. This covert has been cut down for some time, and has
not yet attained holding age or proportion ; but the spacious park
has many a furzy patch in its extent, and these are seldom with-
out a fox or two. The ordinary routine was adhered to now;
the usual result followed — a fox turned up in the park and crossed
the Naas road. The hounds followed him — they could not be
said to drive or force him along ; but as they were on Slieve Rhua
Hill the complexion of things changed for the better, and from
this point they sent their fox gaily along into Punchestown Gorse in
the vale below. Here several fresh foxes jumped up, but the pack
stuck resolutely to their own, and forced him out of the gorse,
when he ran rather by a different line to his first departure, keeping
over Athgarrett Hill. Next he crossed the Downshire Park, and
ran through the gorse there till he reached the Blessington road.
Here he turned back into the park, and got into a sewer, from
which he issued presently (not bolted), and was rolled over close
to the town of Blessington. Strangely enough, a second fox
issued very soon after from the same sewer ; so we may hope
non deficit alter, to run as good a chase when wanted by-and-by. I
do not know the time of the gallop up to Punchestown, the
first stage ; the return or second stage occupied forty-five minutes.
The line was a grassy one, and, the soil being light, it rode quite
unaffected by the recent rainfall.

On the same day the Meath hounds met at Brittas, and had
forty-six minutes thence via Robertstown — twenty-five minutes very

152 HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A.

good from the second covert drawn — and twenty-three from
Farrenalcock Gorse, killing their fox. A Leicestershire man who
was out told me the country and flying fences reminded him much
of that paradise of hunting men and women.

On Tuesday, the igth, a rather limited field met the Meath
hounds at the ancient village of Dunshaughlin, whose surroundings
and historical traditions I alluded to in a recent letter. Like
Mr. Gummidge, Dunshaughlin had seen better days ; and brighter
hunting days than the present had beamed on it — for the array is
sparse enough, considering the character of the country and the
facilities for reaching it. The cause is not far to seek. His
Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught was the guest of the
yth Dragoons last night, in Newbridge Barracks ; the Royal
Horse Artillery also entertained a number of hunting men ;
and we may be quite sure that the staff in the Curragh Camp
are opening hospitable arms to other hunting guests, and stretch-
ing their stables to the utmost limits of expansion to put up their
hunters. The soldiers are the true descendants of the Knights
Hospitallers, and when hunting (the image of war, you know)
is in question, huts and barracks, like Aladdin's wonderful lamp,
are made to furnish everything that is good, genial, and comfort-
ing to the spirit and flesh of mortal. These facts will account
for the absence of many from the ranks in Dunshaughlin (let
me duly acknowledge the hospitable provocation which nearly
made me a deserter) ; while peradventure lots of hunting
" casuals " prefer the easily reached Newbridge and its
surroundings to the equally easily reached Dunshaughlin and
the vicinity. Quot homines, tot sententia. I can only say that,
while I am ignorant at this instant of the result of the New-
bridge gathering and les gros bataillions, I can aver that we,
the minority, had a hunting run, which, for length artd country
traversed, is rarely equalled by any pack in the three kingdoms in
a cycle of seasons. The morning was fine and grey. By
1 1 a.m. it began to cloud over heavily, and menace of rain filled

HIBEXNIA VENATTCA. 153

the western horizon, to the confusion of those who had no
overcoats, and had donned the "better" pink to do honour
to the smiling morn. Half a dozen cars and carriages — less
than a dozen certainly — and some sixty or seventy horsemen
form a total of our field muster. Among the visitors are Lord
Rossmore on a very fine lengthy chestnut, Colonel Forster on
Greek Fire, Captain Candy, Mr. Dundas on a roan, Captain
M'Clintock Bunbury on a clever-looking grey horse, and Mr.
Rose on a good-looking brown horse ; while a few Ward Union
men helped to swell the ranks a little. It is always a subject
of regret to see the fugleman of a field hors de combat, if
only temporarily, and Mr. Trotter has certainly attained that
position in Meath by continuously riding to the front, no matter
what the country, for three or four seasons. He was driving
to-day on a car — forbidden to ride for a week or two, in conse-
quence of a fall. Trotting down the usual laneway, we come
in ten minutes to a small gorse in the middle of grassy fields.
It is known as the Poor-house Gorse, for there is the poor-house
facing it, a quarter of a mile to the eastwards. No sooner were
the hounds "leud" in than a fox went away, pointing for Ash-
bourne, when he inclined a very little to the right, and ran through
some wild patches of gorse at the back of the poor-house. Here
we were confronted by a very wide ditch, which could not have
been jumped, as least by most out, had the sides not sloped
inwards. Some jumped, some crept down, nearly all got over
somehow. In a couple of fields we are bearing to the left ;
our fox is evidently ringing back, and there is not much scent;
so for a time there follows a very short check in a small planta-
tion. And now we are under way again, in the original
direction, but at rather a slow and hesitating pace. Presently
we cross the Dublin road, and here we are by the edge of the
river and wooded bank that guards the fearful Ten-mile Bush
Farm, which I have more than once noticed in recent letters.
Our course diverges now to the right a little, and the first obstacle

i54 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

is a rhene or brook, ugly enoygh and big enough, and with
certain black tokens on the far side which speak of soft falling
if you get so far. How many got in I cannot say, but among
the unfortunate were two who we may be quite certain did harden
their hearts and put their horses at it with resolution — Goodall
the huntsman and Captain Candy. (Melting moments these.) Nor
did the process of getting out look half as easy as getting in;
but their friends must not mourn — no coroner will pronounce
his " Found drowned " on them yet, at any rate. Over the brook
and a smaller edition in the' shape of a drain or two, we are
confronted by a huge double, sedgy and reed-grown — really
nothing much to jump, but rather appalling if you are not sure
of your mount. I think Lord Langford, Captain Bunbury, and
Mr. Dundas piloted us over. I fancy I recollect following a
lady who rode a neat grey over it. We are now entering
Parsonstown Manor, close to the Batterstown railway station, and
hounds begin to mend their pace forthwith. Some stalk off to
the right, some keep a* line parallel to the metals (just the course
a deer ran the other day) ; the former had much the best of
it when the pack turned, which they did presently, running through
Johnstown lands, thence past Dunshaughlin village, and then
dipping down into that fine valley under Culmullen. Why the
fox did not try Culmullen, I know not — the harbour was within
a mile or rather more, and it might have saved his life; but
the probability is that he was one of a litter brought out near
Parsonstown Manor House, and for that reason he neglected
Culmullen and the friendly gorses of Mulhussey and Colistoun,
which latter covert the hard-riding Mr. M'Gerr looks after most
efficiently. If this theory be correct, it brought him over again
across the Meath line by Parsonstown, over the wide pastures
of the Bush Farm (whose gates were fortunately open), thence
across the Dunboyne Road to a point very near the Fairy
House, the capital of stag-hunting. Here he turned, and made
Mr. Thunder's park of Lagore, through which he ran resolutely

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 155

onwards, neglecting apparently its countless burrows, into which
he might have crept and saved himself. Once more he brushes
by the Poor-house Gorse, and threads that path which he has taken
twice already, across the Dublin road, and so on to Parsonstown.
But if this place saw his birth, it also saw his death. Who-whoop,
who-whoop ! they have him at last ! — a strong and determined
fox, if inclined to twist and zigzag not a little ; for the chase
began at 11.30 a.m., and till 2.30 p.m. they have been running
him continuously, and sometimes at good pace. Multiply seven
miles Irish by three, and you will have a total of twenty-one Irish
miles, done on rich holding grass lands ; nor is seven Irish miles
a very grand or exaggerated estimate of fair hunting pace. Had
this run been moderately straight, it would have been something
extraordinary ; as it was, I have heard of nothing equal to it this
season so far. To be on grass land for three hours is in itself a
luxury, and, beyond a small garden near a cottage, I cannot call
to my mind any plough in the circuit. Thrusters of the noli me
tangere order despise circular runs. To the preponderating
majority they are everything, enabling them to see many stages,
if not all, of a fine long pursuit, and to be in front also occa-
sionally.

In a twisting run of this immense length, of course there were
innumerable changes in the front ranks of spectators. The metals
of the Navan line, for instance, threw out one or two good men
into temporary exile. Some went wide at Culmullen, and lost
that good bit. In the second stage the hardest rider and the
best-mounted man in the world might find himself pounded in
the Bush Farm. Goodall came to watery grief a second time,
when going in his usual fine form. (By the way, I have since
heard that a sportsman from Leicestershire had his ear invaded
with a deafening effect by a small fish, which he picked up in the
brook.) A noble lord who had gone well desisted in the Bush
Farm, after his third fall. Lord Langford, who had been ex-
tremely well carried for two-thirds of the journey, lost a fore shoe

156 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

towards the end, and had to give up, when lost shoes and dead
beat were not synonymous terms. Passing through Lagore and
Dunshaughlin Gorse the last time, there were not many near the
pack, but among them were Messrs. M'Gerr (on a capital black
hunter), Dunne, Coleridge, Dundas, Thunder, Maher, and
Aungier, while Messrs. Hone and Kearsley were among the
finishers. Nearly every hound took his part in the worry. To
have ridden eight or ten miles of the run was a treat ; to have
never quitted them was an aureole to man or horse. The ladies,
three especially, went admirably.

In Kildare, on the same date, sport did not patronize the
crowds who ventured to the Barrack meet. There was a gorgeous
gallery. The jumping powder purveyed by the soldier officers
was as exhilarating as ever ; but scent and luck combined against
the prospects of the day, and a fox chopped in Martinstown, and
some pottering round the Curragh and Carrick Hill, were nearly
the sole outcome of great expectations. The soldiers and civilians
who trained down from Dublin pronounced the unanimous verdict
that the game was not worth the candle, seeing that the Great
Southern and Western line, who are more liberal to the racing
than the hunting interest, made the said candle an extremely
expensive taper. Two consecutive fine hunting days is too much
to expect just now ; consequently Wednesday was as continuously
dripping in the earlier hours, as soakingly heavy in the later, as
the heart of a wildfowl need wish.

The Ward Union hounds met at Rathbeggan, very near the
glorious finish of yesterday's fox chase, and through rain and mud
a select party of about thirty-five, or perhaps even less, journeyed
to the trysting-place, something like a dozen English miles from
the metropolis. On the left hand, after passing Dunboyne, flood
usurped the entire valley ; the right-hand pasture land lay higher,
but was partially under the dominion of water. The best thing
to do under the circumstances was to ride up towards the highest
land in the basin ; so the deer-cart was sent up the Fairy House

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 157

Lane, and an unknown, untried deer made her debut on the lands
of Porterstown. From this point she pushed on past Dun-
shaughlin village, and skirted the Lagore Marsh — now more like
a sedgy lake — then holding on by Harbourstown towards Pries-
town, she turned back as if for Batterstown ; but brushing by the
Pinkeen Bridge, where there was a slight check, she held her way
on direct to the Fairy House racecourse and stand, beyond which
point, when seemingly bound for Ratoath, she crossed the road
leading^ to that town, and once more got on to the verge of
Lagore, giving the half-dozen who were still pursuing a deepish
river to cross on our track. It was just a nice fly ; but horses are
not in flying trim after an hour and fifty minutes in such a country.
However, Mr. McCullagh did it cleverly and quietly. Lord Clan-
morris, who was on a very smart chestnut mare, probably to be
heard of between the flags, etc., etc., hopped over it as if it had
been a mere drain. Mr. Hanaway, who was on a hot but very
good chestnut, sounded its depths ; the other three — well, we
found out a ford which was very nearly a swim for some horses,
and so got over'after a few minutes' delay ; while Charley Brindley,
on his celebrated grey mare, despised this slow process, and flew
it to our right. Another river, hardly jumpable, hardly crossable,
is in front now ; the hounds have thrown up their heads ; rain is
coming down in heavy torrents. Another deer must be left out,
I very much fear. We are now close to Ratoath, or its outer
edge, and the time is said to be two hours from the enlargement
to the fault at the Ratoath stream. " Never rode such a race,"
says a noble lord ; " No, more did I," says a commoner, who
always rides hard, whether between flags or in the hunting field.
Is it not somewhat of a coincidence that two such runs should
follow each other so immediately, and partially over the same
country ? for the big Poor-house drain, an initial fence of yesterday,
was in the track to-day.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught was out to-day,
riding the roan horse I have before alluded to, and for an hour —

158 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

as I hear — was quite a pioneer. I cannot speak of his hautsfatts,
nor of those of several good and gallant men, for the simple
reason that I did not see them, having only nicked in for the
latter part of this splendid gallop, when several left off riding,
thinking the best part of the fun was over. I hear that among
the heavy weights Mr. O'Reilly and Mr. Meldon were going very
well. Mr. W. Stewart's Gamekeeper mare also proved herself as
stout as she is brilliant, persevering on till the end ; but I believe
the fugleman of the earlier part of the run was Mr. Coppinger, on
Honeymoon.

In justice to the authorities who rule over the mud canal
I referred to, I must say that at last some repairs are being
attempted. Stones are laid over the grosser ruts; but plenty
of mud remains for experimental observers. Every day lately
has brought sport to the United Hunt (Cork). As illustrations
we may take the i5th, when they met at Dunkettle, the residence
of the M.F.H., Mr. Thomas Gubbins, in much rain. A quick
find, and a four-mile steeplechase till the fox was rolled over in
a fifty-acre field, were the results. On the i8th they met at
Mogeely, and found at once in Castle Martyr, Lord Shannon's
park, sending their fox to ground in a limekiln, after about two
miles. In the Strand Road Covert they found a second, who
took them along gaily beyond Cloyne, where a long check ensued.
Saunders, however, presently hit off the line, and him too they
rolled over in the open, Captain Hunt, Mr. and Miss Longfield,
seeing the chase very well all through. The mastership of the
pack will be vacant at the close of the present season, and the
bait ought to tempt enterprise and adventure, seeing that the
committee, besides keeping the country, proffer ten or eleven
hundred a year. The pack belongs to the committee, who would
lend it on terms and conditions of the most liberal nature to the
master : and the stock of foxes is one that reflects great credit on
the preservers and promoters of the royal game in their riding
of Cork.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 159

Of Thursday I can only state that the weather seemed to
prelude a white Christmas, for it was very bitterly cold, and much
soft snow fell for an hour or two, though it did not lie. I made
a mistake in a fixture, and did not find out my blunder till late,
after hacking a long distance. A blunder in Ireland is, of course,
a very natural thing; but, as such a thing might possibly occur
anywhere, I make a suggestion, in the printing interest, that
hunting men who have many engagements should have cards in
triplicate — one to be placed near the scene of early shaving, one
in the hall, and one in the saddle-room, so that your groom's
audit may correct any lapse of eye or hurried glance of your own.

The card was correctness itself. My eye was wrong ; or did
I trust somebody's unauthoritative ipse dixit ? I fear this was the
case. Rahinstown meet and the subsequent events are now
matters of (fox) history. I dip my pen into the ink bottle, and
record the sport of the day. Ink is fluid still — not frozen ; that's
encouraging, at any rate, while frost is supreme out of doors, and
has no small influence within, too. Rahinstown forms one of a
triad of parks which almost border one another — Summerhill,
Lord Langford's ; Agher, Mr. Winter's ; Rahinstown, Mr. Fowler's.
It is a phoenix, inasmuch as it has arisen recently from the ashes
of a mansion burnt down some three or four years ago, of which
catastrophe I recollect writing you an account at the time of its
occurrence. The country round is not pleasant or inviting to the
hunting eye. Moss and peat mix largely with the vale; while
the little hills, of which there is a perfect eruption, are poor and
thin of soil — gravelly for the most part, and not scent-retaining
by any means. No greater contrast could be presented to the
wide-ranging pasture through which one rides or drives either
from Kilcock or Dunboyne. The outlook in the earlier hours
was very anti-hunting. Snow flakes were eddying about in the
air current ; the grasp of hard frost was on the earth ; it seemed
even betting on a fall of snow. By ten o'clock, however, the sun
came out, and everything brightened a bit, though the cold was

t6o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

great, and a searching north wind bit into you shrewdly. The
eastern mountain barrier gleamed white with new-fallen snow,
ice filmed over the surface water, and one's reins gave one the
feeling of touching hot iron. There was a very good-sized
assembly in front of Mr. Fowler's house, and the juvenile element,
like the bees in Virgil's poem, " ludit favis emissa juventus " — the
working " cells " being, I suppose, thfe school-rooms, now to be
forgotten for six (we'll hope very pleasant) weeks. Some were on
ponies, hunters in miniature ; but one young gentleman rode a
very fine brown mule, who seemed, if willing, capable of great
things. There were not a great many visitors or strangers pre-
sent, if we except Lord Rossmore, Mr. Forbes, and Mr. Russell,
of Limerick ; but here is the gorse, which clothes luxuriantly one
of these little hills I alluded to just now. It is tenanted, be sure,
for no hare could evoke such notes, were the Meath hounds
capable of riot — of which I believe the single-season hunters
are quite free, even under strong provocation. Away he goes,
making a half-circuit of the park, and past the farmstead, the
hounds very near him, and carrying a very good head indeed.
Now they are on plough — the soil peaty, and a poor medium for
scent — they are at fault ; but Saffron, a fine, large-sized hound,
repairs the telegraph, and away they go nearly back to the gorse,
then on towards the obelisk in the lands of Dangan Castle,
leaving Rathmolyon village and church to the left hand. Pre-
sently our fox turns in to the Bullring Gorse, where the brook and
double caused some amusing scenes. After a mile — it is no use
persevering, we must give him up — the record is lost.

Agher Woods are now the scene. A quick find, a tremendous
scurry through the park at racing pace for those who were not
keeping a sharp look-out for the pack, followed by a sharp burst
into Agher Red Bog. Garradice Gorse, the next draw, is a better
prospect for the gallop we want to stir the blood and quicken
pulsation. One hound, with a very deep note, tells us a fox is
there, though not very willing to leave its warmth and thickness.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 161

At last the steeplechase begins (because men somehow start from
this gorse as if they knew they had not more than a mile or two
before them, and are determined it shall be fast, if brief). The
third fence, an up-bank, has a treacherous cut on the far side, and
Mr. Dundas and Mistletoe come down, apparently heavily. A
few fields more, and grief is rampant ; loose horses, led horses,
all the tokens are there. On through Larch Hill lands ; but the
hounds are pausing now. After this it is a potter, I think a
fruitless one; at any rate, your scribe pottered home minus a
shoe. This pack was at Balrath Bury yesterday. Foxes were
not wanting ; but, beyond some hunting between Balrath and
Drewstown, the day was inglorious.

The Westmeath had, I hear, fair sport on Monday last,
between Gaybrook and Galston Parks, killing a fox from the latter
after about an hour's pursuit. From Irishtown, on Wednesday,
they had another good chase, the line leading past Ballinacargy
and Rathcourath.

I find in my account of Tuesday's engrossing run (from the
Poor-house Gorse, Dunshaughlin) that I have over-stated the time
by a good many minutes, twenty at least, though my estimate of
the distance is not very incorrect — some say understated. This
makes the hounds' performance a better one even than I had
conceived. Captain M'Clintock Bunbury, I should have added,
as first up, had the handling of the stout fox prior to the worry.

P.S. — I must not forget to include among the great hunting
successes of the week a very fine hunting run which the West
Meath hounds had on Friday last, while we in Eastern Meath were
" beat, bafHed, and blown " from want of scent ; nor a capital
gallop which the Kildare hounds gave us on Saturday (to-day)
from Cullen's Gorse, when the upper crust of the earth was frost-
bound, and it seemed doubtful whether hounds would come to
the meet at all. The pack had a moderate day on Thursday last,
when they met at Tinoran cross-roads, deficient earth-stopping
being the principal feature of the day.

M

1 62 HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A.

XII.

' Shivere, shakere, diluculo !
May be very wholesome — but not for Joe ! "

Revised Latin Grammat

Maynooth — Cullen's Gorse — Christmastide — The Mount Neil run — Mr.
French's death — Trim — ' ' London. "

THOSE who got up before nine o'clock a.m. on Saturday, the
23rd — and to do so required some stoicism — saw the winter of
pictures very grandly illustrated ; a sky cold and repelling, while
a sun which only Turner could interpret was suffusing the east
with saffron hues; the air hushed and still; beasts and birds
wearing that patient, subdued air of resignation which the first
touch of winter in earnest brings ; ponds skirted over with ice ;
but — consoling feature ! — the earth was overspread with rime, and
it requires but little divination to know that such a frost is seldom
a stayer.

The Kildare hounds were due at Maynooth, where the moist
water-sodden vale, well carpeted with luxuriant grass, afforded
a better prospect of riding than any country I know of outside the
Ward Union limits ; but so hard was the ground in the forenoon
that I saw a very bold pointer, full of go and with good feet,
utterly unable to beat his ground in his wonted style. " Will the
hounds come ? " was the anxious problem of many. The hounds
did come, and the ivy-mantled ruins of the old Geraldine keep
looked down upon a very goodly company gathered together in

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 163

the cause of fox-hunting; but as their horses' hoofs made the
adamantine roads resound again, the hope of hunting to-day
seemed somewhat a forlorn one. A very cosmopolitan gather-
ing it was. Lots of border men from Meath, well-mounted as
they generally are, among whom we may mention Lord Langford,
the Hon. Captain Rowley, Mr. A. Macneil, Mr. Dunne, and
a few more ; the Queen's County sent Mr. and Mrs. Adair, who
seldom miss a Kildare Saturday, and are equally fortunate in
securing good front places in the gallops which Saturday rarely
fails to bring to Kildare. Lord Oranmore represented Galway on
a fine stamp of bay weight-carrier, who, I hear, galloped fast in
France between flags.

H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, on his Lawyer horse, was in
the field, attended by Captain Maurice Fitzgerald, his equerry.
The Dublin Garrison was not in force, the Hon. Captain Scott and
one or two more being the sole champions of that powerful hunt-
ing body. Dublin contributed Mr. Roberts and Mr. Robertson,
both admirably mounted. Mr. Rose was ready to ride hard for
Limerick, his native county — no hard task on the beautiful Zouave
horse that carried him. The 75th Regiment of the line sent
Captain Beresford and Mr. Keevil Davis. Kildare — Lower
Kildare, I mean, for in all probability Upper Kildare was looking
to its skates — was in strong force. Leicestershire was championed
by Captain and the Hon. Mr. Candy, while Eton (Bucks) sent
two of its alumni in Mr. W. Forbes's sons, both admirably
mounted, both fully capable of doing justice to good mounts.
But the bell rings ; the play begins ; we are entering the splendid
park of Carton through the Maynooth avenue, Lord Maurice
Fitzgerald the sole representative of his ducal house in the field
to-day. Park-hunting is park-hunting, and, though few fairer
theatres exist for its exhibition than Carton, it is not interesting
in the relation or the reading. Let us pass over an hour or two
spent in fine woods and spacious pastures, and let us trot up the
lane leading to Cullen's Gorse, where the usual jam and other

1 64 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

features of the sort reproduce themselves. The find is quick as
lightning; a few who are very well placed jump through the well-
known gap, cantering down the pasture in front of them, only to
find that the fox has not gone on his usual track now ; he has
turned towards Carton, and we have to clatter back along the
lane-way again, to find that the fox, probably headed, has bent
to the right, and is running towards Castletown Park. Towards,
but not to; for presently he bends to the right, and, shaping
a course over some swampy-looking ground, which really was not
bad riding at all, and most suitable to the exigencies of the
day, he swept along at great pace through this bit of vale ; on
through Corbally, passing by Mr. Wrecker's farm, where a double
or two detained some sportsmen ; and so on to the gentle acclivity
of Windgate Hill, down once more into the vale, pointing for
Rathcoffey ; then with an inclination to the right, through Griffins-
town, by Lady Chapel on to Laragh. And here a flock of sheep
caused a long check, and suspended hunting for some time, till
the clue was regained at Taghadoe Covert, in which our fox, who
had got fifteen or twenty minutes to the good, had taken refuge.
From this point he was hunted till the first bit of newly turned-up
plough brought the pack to their noses, and gave our fox another
good start. Thence we followed him slowly to the cross-roads of
Windgate Hill; over the hill, across the Celbridge road, through
Captain Johnson's farm, till waning light and failing scent stopped
further investigation, for I cannot call the last part of our chase
pursuit. The going over the vale was very good — unexpectedly
so, I should think, to many — and, though a few banks had rather
hard tops and sides, the fencing (mostly of a flying nature) was
very pleasant, and there were not so many falls as might have
been anticipated. Mr. Forbes (on Hock) and one of his sons (on
a capital brown hunter) got off on capital terms, and made use of
their advantage ; so did Messrs. Bayly and Hanaway, two hard-
riding men, who will not, I fancy, summon me to Calais or the
land of the brave Belgians for dwelling on this personal character-

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 165

istic, or naming their names. Captain R. Mansfield and Mr.
Percy La Touche met a huge ditch in their progress, which their
horses failed to clear. (It is described as almost unjumpable, if
not quite so, where they took it;) and here they had to spend
many a mauvais quart d'heure till ropes came to extricate them,
and the first set, I heard, proved too weak for the strain !

Talking of horses and their peculiarities, I heard of a rather
dangerous experience the other day ; but I was not out myself on
the occasion, so cannot speak from observation. A bold dragoon
— and he needed all his courage — bought a horse whose fencing
was uncertain, but of his vicious or playful habits when his rider
was prone no doubt existed. After several escapes it seems our
gay cavalier, who had fallen at an up-bank, was climbing up the
steep eminence to get out of his hunter's reach. The latter, how-
ever, would not be denied his opportunity, so he seized his rider
by the back of his coat with his teeth to have his innings. How
he was rescued it boots not now to tell ; suffice it to say that I
have seen the said dragoon going well since, so his nerves may be
supposed not to have suffered. Most systems would have felt the
shock for many a day. The Ward Union hounds met at the Flat
House on this date, and had, I hear, a very enjoyable gallop.

Apropos of the peculiarities of hunters, let me record here
a very curious circumstance, to which I know no parallel. Mr.
Morrogh, on the occasion of his recent accident (a broken leg),
sent his stud to the hammer at FarrelPs, in Dublin. They were
seasoned hunters for the most part, well known, and sold to the
satisfaction of their owner — all save one, perhaps the pick of the
basket, a thoroughly good hunter, but withal a nervous, sensitive
horse. It is supposed that this horse got thoroughly cowed by
the usual trials of copers for wind soundness, for just as he was
about to be sold it was found that his jaw was rigid from tetanus.
Some fourteen or fifteen days have elapsed since, and I have not
heard that the horse has been relieved thoroughly yet. Let me
here state an experience of my own in a foreign country, where

1 66 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

the veterinary art was still in its infancy and unsystematised. I
had driven a young mare, a remarkably good goer, a long distance
as tandem leader ; no sooner was the bit out of her mouth than all
the symptoms of idiopathic tetanus set in. Circumstances aided
me. A sheep had been recently killed ; I had the skin put over
her loins, and kettles of almost boiling water poured over it
at short intervals for hours. By morning the poor mare was
relieved. I sold her, and saw her at work afterwards, but never
the same high-couraged animal as before the nervous seizure.

Ireland is emphatically the island of saints. Look around its
ivy-mantled ruins — they nearly all wear an ecclesiastical type.
Many of the bubbling wells and springs to which the peasant
matron and maid daily resort are rich in saintly story and tradition.
Like the Spaniard, the Irish Celt built his temple on grand lines,
before, like the Gaul, he bethought him of his theatre or his own
domestic hearth ; and, even while his cult was in the cold shade of
semi-legal proscription, fanes of no mean architectural beauty
dotted the face of the country. With this exordium let me state
that all over Ireland foxes — and, I believe, hares too — had perfect
repose and peace on Christmas Day. Apollyon himself, in the
quick, would, I believe, have been granted an armistice on the
day of universal peace and good will to mankind and our cousins
the ferae.

" He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast,"

was the rule and legend sans exception, save in the case of fat
oxen and double-breasted bubbly-jocks, to whom we showed our
affection in a very carnal and cannibal fashion. So for forty-eight
hours the music of hound and the blast of the huntsman's trumpet
were not heard in Ireland ; and stud grooms had an interregnum
of two days to repair the exhaustion of nine or ten weeks of con-
tinuous and wearing strain, latterly intensified by the holding
nature of the water-sodden ground. Two whole days without
hunting ! Why, the riding world, like the hero of Donnybrook

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 167

Fair, was beginning to get blue-mouldy for want of a scurry, more
especially since the menace of frost and snow had passed away
like the alarms of war ; and this terraqueous section of the globe,
after having resumed for a brief interval the nature of crust, had
relapsed again into a state of crumb and pulp and gelatinism.
Tuesday was the festa of St. Stephen, the proto-martyr. In John
Bull's land it is boxing day ; here it is " stoning " day, and bands
of small boys, accompanied by some mummers, and such music
as they can command, go about from house to house dancing,
feasting, and collecting tribute (if they can) in reward for the
slaughter of sundry wrens, whom we may suppose to be stoned to
commemorate the fate of the saintly deacon. It is a holy day ;
for sure 'tis under the patronage of St. Stephen. It is a jolly day ;
for sure that mighty moon, John Jameson, who sways the tides in
the affairs of men (and women) in Ireland, is under no eclipse
that day. The armistice is closed ; war upon fur and feather —
aye, even upon the pike who infests lakes and canals — is univer-
sally proclaimed. Almost every man of able body and robust
health in Ireland on that day becomes for the nonce a sportsman,
and, donning the insignia of his calling, sallies out on the war
path. Gunners, anglers, coursers, fox-hunters, stag-hunters, hare-
hunters, all had their beats marked out for them. Looking at the
hunting programme from a metropolitan club-window point of
view, three lines — like Sir Robert Peel's celebrated three courses —
presented themselves to the otiose hunting man to whom the deep
soil and the watery ways had left a horse or two fit to take their
part in the image of war. The stag-hunter met the Ward Union
pack at the Flat House, whose vale was far more suggestive of
otter-hunting than aught else. The Meath hounds met at Swains-
town, Mr. Preston's residence, and it was well known that His
Royal Highness would be in the field, as he was the guest
of Colonel Fraser, V. C., at Bective, and Swainstown was very
accessible by that delectable Meath line — which brings you, 'tis
true, to the trysting-place in very good time, and also for the most

1 68 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

part in great personal safety, but takes you away (there are but
two trains a day on this single line) just as an afternoon fox,
ungorged and lively, is beginning to show sport : " keeping the
word of (hunting) promise to the ear to break it to the hope."
Non tali auxilio. No indeed ! one or two such experiences suffice
for a season. Certainly not, while Naas and the Great Southern
and Western line offer a better exodus and a more convenient
time for retiring from the fray. The Kildare hounds were to meet
at Naas that day. Swainstown and the Flat House ought to dis-
pose of many redundant men and horses. Let the glass of fashion
and the mould of form repair to Swainstown to witch the world
with noble horsemanship, and to display the recentest triumphs of
Saville-row and St. James's-street. I will repair to modest Naas
and its sporting brotherhood — peradventure sport will be pro-
pitious to our minority. Yes, it was a minority compared to the
legions whom " Naas " on Mr. Gray's correct card usually draws
to this sporting vortex ; one saw this at once at King's Bridge
Terminus, where not more than a dozen horse boxes were
requisitioned for the day's use from garrison, court, and city. Let
us pass over that slow procession to Sallins, near which town it is
easy and grievous to see the most attractive flying fences in the
vale margined by wire. The most salient feature on the route was
a green and gold band of musicians, the last phantom of Fenian-
ism, which hopes cere ciere viros martemque accendere cantu. Naas
was comparatively empty at eleven o'clock, when we reached it ;
but for this one of the most bitterly cold days that this year has
evoked must be mainly responsible, for horses had to be kept
moving fast or in their stables, while every one stuck to his ingle
nook on such a morning till the very last instant. Five minutes
past eleven, and then came the hounds; Will Freeman and his
aide-de-camps all wearing that look of achievement and content
which a very successful half season has fully warranted ; and now
the streets are beginning to fill, and horses are pulled out of their
stalls and boxes ! Among those whom fashion and novelty had

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 169

not drawn away from Kildare and its hunting grounds were
Lord Clonmell, the Hon. T. Scott, Mr. W. Forbes, Sir Michael
Hicks Beach, the Hon. Major Lawless, Captain and the Hon.
Mrs. Candy, the Baron de Robeck, Colonel Forster, Captain
Wakefield, R. N., Lord Oranmore, Mr. and Mrs. More O'Farrell,
General Seymour, Captain Ward Bennett, Mr. Roberts, Captain
Beresford, a detachment of the yth Dragoons and the Royal and
Horse Artillery from Newbridge, etc. ; Captains Trench and Mans-
field, General and Captain Irwin, Mr. Charles Hamilton, Captain
de Montmorency, Captain Gresson, Mr. Percy and Lady Annette
La Touche, Captain R. Barton, Captain Fortescue Tynte, Mr. and
Miss Moore, Mr. Linde, and Mr. Beasley (on Montgomery II.),
the Misses Kennedy and Owen, Miss O'Kelly, and Mr. Thunder,
with a good many more leal men and true, loyal to their hunt and
their own hunting grounds.

It was a bitter forenoon. The wind was easterly, the glass
ascending ; but the slopes of the eastern hills were snow-flecked.
Portentous clouds, charged with rain or snow, hung over our
heads, and it became only a question of what shape the fall would
take when the half gale which was blowing in full blast began to
mitigate its violence. No morning to make fine speeches about
the compliments of the season, or invoke everything good for the
coming year. Mr. Mansfield rattled us off at the double to
Eadestown Gorse by the well-known Punchestown track. The
irony of fate or circumstance willed it that our line should be cast
over breezy acclivities to-day ; and, though a fox did not detain
us more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour in the tiny
gorse, it seemed an interminable space of cold, dreary duration.
Away he goes; away we go, jammed in a gate; then careering
over a plough and a well-trodden gap, then emerging into grass,
where the pack checks at the road. Our fox has been headed
(small wonder, when the place is all but encircled), and is gone
back. Another twenty minutes, even drearier than the last, and
then we are in motion again. The fox's first impulse was Punches-

170 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

town ; now it is Elverstown or Downshire Park. Either would
do for a fair gallop ; but no fox would face the gale for two
minutes unless he had a great start, nor does ours; so, sinking
the wind, he runs parallel to the gorse and the Rathmore road,
then sweeping over some very fine pasture land, he holds on over
the Blessington road — where a very narrow, newly made bank
brings a well-known chaser and a good welter-weight to grief —
crosses the wide grassy acres of Newtown Farm, and is supposed
to have gone to Forenaghts Woods. But hounds hardly hunted
a yard beyond Newtown pastures, and my theory is that our fox
doubled up a hedgerow, tried the well-known earths and got back
to Eadestown. Be that as it may, we gave him up, and went to
another eminence, which overlooks Arthurstown Gorse, and then
huddled under banks and thorns to avoid the cutting sting of the
east wind. Presently the horn informed those capable of hearing
that our search was vain. The storm of rain now began to
descend : a stampede homewards was the almost universal instinct.
A council of the chase convened for the occasion decided (wisely
I think) that to draw Punchestown Gorse in such weather was not
advantageous to Kildare's best hunting interests. So ends the
story of St. Stephen's Day in Kildare as I saw it and felt it. Even
a short gallop was a pleasure. I have said nothing of the per-
formance of men and horses in that short spin, and yet it was not
wholly devoid of episode and incident. Empty saddles were to
be seen. One of our best light-weights broke two stirrup leathers
starting in this run, and had a narrow escape of a heavy fall.
The Hon. Mrs. Candy, who was riding a new four-year-old, had
the great satisfaction of finding out that her mount was as clever
in performance as he was taking in appearance. Those who
elected Naas in preference to Swainstown were right, I find,
according to the issue ; for, meagre as the sport was in Kildare, it
was even more jejune in Meath, seeing that Swainstown and
Kilcarty Corses were foxless to-day, and some park-hunting round
Dunsany was, I believe, the entire outcome of the long-expected

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 171

day. By-the-by, what is a good run ? I may give my notion on
that subject by-and-by; but when I see your generally well-in-
formed and accurate sporting contemporary actually crediting the
Osberstown fox (kennel meet, Kildare) with a good run when the
brute never went four fields from his gorse, I am beginning to
think that definition is necessary before adjectives can be freely
used.

On Wednesday, the 28th, the Ward Union hounds were due
at Dunboyne village at one o'clock, and, as this village is full of
hunters just now, I conceived that in all probability there would
be a very large meet there, seeing that it is not much more than
eight miles (Irish) from the metropolis, with a railway station close
by. My anticipations of a large company were erroneous. The
field was most moderate in extent, and the Garrison was almost
wholly unrepresented at the assembly. A dark, sombre, foggy
forenoon; by one o'clock a thin rain began to descend, which,
like Fame, gained volume in its progress (vires acquirit eundo),
and by twenty minutes past it descended in sluices, but only last-
ing long enough to soak every one pretty thoroughly. Before two
the storm was over, and we were careering after a deer enlarged
by Baytown Park. First, we had a little ring by way of prelimi-
nary, then a wide one, which introduced us to several brooks
(where Mr. A. Macneil's chestnut horse showed very good form),
and to an array of large, repulsive fences between Baytown and
Ballymacoll, which required a good hunter's stretch ; then followed
the capture at a point near Vesington. The day being still young,
a second deer was enlarged not far from the scene of the capture
of the first ; and if it did not run very far, it ran over a fine sound
line, well brooked also, by Crookstown, on to Batterstown, where
it was secured, Captain Candy, who got very well away, taking
a leading part in the performance. The Hon. Mrs. Candy was
riding one of the nicest chesnut horses I have ever seen a lady on,
and equal, I hear, to any and every country.

I alluded just now to the diversity of opinion existing about

172 HI BERN I A YEN ATI C A.

runs, and the application of qualifying adjectives. Of the follow-
ing outline of a run— I give the mere skeleton — there will be very
little divergence of opinion, I fancy. The date was the 22nd inst.,
the meeting place Moncoin, the pack the Curraghmore. Mount
Neil, first drawn, was empty. A fox, however, turned up in a
small plantation on the Curraghmore side of Mount Neil. He
ran through the covert and pointed for Granny, where some quar-
ries had ere this saved him opportunely. They were closed now ;
so he held on for Dunkit, where there was a slight check ; but
Duke hit off the line directly. It led over the railway and across
the Blackwater by the bridge, thence right through Bishop's Hall,
and straight into Tory Hill, where, with the hounds a field behind
him, he got a refuge among inaccessible rocks. The distance
from Mount Neil to the finish, as the crow flies, is over nine
English miles ; as the fox travelled it was about fourteen, and very
straight, all over grass. The time taken was one hour and thirty
minutes, and the field had dwindled down to eight or nine, in-
cluding the huntsman and first whip, the Marquis of Waterford,
a welter-weight, on Long John, and a couple of ladies who rode
the gallop admirably. Needless to say, scent was breast high
nearly all through ; but the fact is, the Curraghmore hounds have
had very little baffling scent this season ; hence, combined with
their stout foxes, the grand sport they have shown up to date.

Friday, the 2 2nd, was also a white-stone day in Western Meath,
my authority being a Leicestershire man, who was full of the sport,
the servants and their mounts, and, in fine, of the tout ensemble.
On this date they met at Delvin, and, finding at South Hill, ran
their fox through Rosmeade Park (Lord Vaux's) to Ballinlough
(Sir C. Nugent's), and here there was a short check. Then the
chase led on towards Heathstown, to Mount Nelson, and thence
to Drewstown, which is Meath territory, and consequently stopped :
one hour and a quarter by the unstopped watch. Among the
leaders in this gallop were the Hon. Mrs. Malone, General the
Hon. Curzon Smythe, and Captain Candy. A second fox was

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 173

found in Rosmeade, who got into a rabbit-hole ; but when the
pack were drawn off he came out, and was hunted into Ballin-
lough. South Hill produced a third fox, who was hunted as long
as light lasted, when every one turned in to a late luncheon.

Saturday's run from Archerstown with the Meath hounds was
described to me as very good ; but the riding, by all accounts,
was neither pleasant nor very safe. Kilgar and Clonabraney also
furnished their quota of good foxes that day. Wednesday, the
zoth, was another good day in Westmeath; they found a good
fox in Irishtown Gorse, who took them by Ballinacargy and Fay
Mount to Rathconrath, where he got into a cave. The time well-
nigh sixty minutes, the line grass, the pace good, interrupted but
by a single check.

Friday, the 22nd again ! The scene is now laid in Wexford,
where the hounds met at Wilton. Let us hurry on to "the
Master's Gorse," which, as usual, is full. Forty minutes' ring with
one ; then the hounds change to a fresh one, and race him towards
Rossdroit, then through Mr. Hope's large grass farm, over Balla-
deen, through Ballinavary, across the river Boro at the Flax Mills,
through Craan, and into the Turret Grove on Carrighill. Here
the bitches were halloaed on to a fresh fox, whom they raced over
Davidstown by the back of the chapel, through Moneybore,
through Rossdroit Wood, over the hill as if he meant to try Lord
Carew's coverts at Castleboro' ; but, swinging to the left, he swept
through Moneytucker and Ballybane, winning his way back to the
Turret Grove (the last eight miles occupied an hour) ; in vain,
however, for he was rolled over at ten minutes to four o'clock, the
hounds having been continuously hunting for three hours and
twenty-five minutes, and part of the time running very fast. Every
hound, I hear, was up at the finish.

The Kildare hounds had a good day's sport on Thursday last,
to which I think I hardly made allusion. The meet was at
Tinorin cross-roads. The Hill Gorse held a fox, but he was
killed in covert. Ballyhook was blank ; but Whitestown held a

174 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

tenant, who ran towards Stratford, then turning over a swampy
sort of morass, strongly banked, which emptied a good saddle or
two, he ran back by Wine Tavern to his starting-point, and got
to ground somehow, after a very enjoyable twenty-six or twenty-
seven minutes. Copelands held a fox, who ran vid Merganstown
to Whitestown also, and could not be dislodged. Sleet and snow
showers coming on caused a dispersion homewards, many of the
Carlow quota having long rides back, and they were in force
to-day — among them the Messrs. Bunbury, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart
Duckett, Mr. Beauchamp Bagenal, and Captain Tanner.

The week, now closing in storm and tempest, has not been
rich in sport. Hounds blown home ; meets rendered impossible
from weather considerations ; a race fixture postponed, not from
frost and snow, but from rain and deluge — such have been our
chief weather characteristics.

I find I was somewhat premature in denouncing the week of
storm and rain as barren of sport. While we were enjoying
ourselves on Wednesday last with a couple of short-running deer
in the deep Dunboyne country, the Meath hounds had one of
their brightest days from Beau Pare, Mr. Gustavus Lambart's
beautiful residence by the Boyne Water. I should say the fun
began from Beau Pare, which was the scene of the meet ; but it
was Slater's Gorse that furnished the best morning fox, who gave
the pack a capital half-hour, though not continuously straight,
the run ending near Lismullen. His Royal Highness the Duke
of Connaught, who had been staying at Bective, the guest of
Colonel Fraser, was in the field, and saw this portion of the day's
sport. Some military function in Dublin prevented his witnessing
the concluding part of the day's programme, which turned out
exceptionally good and brilliant, a straight-necked fox, found at
Lismullen, taking the pack along fast over a beautiful, sound line
of grass by the Castle of Screen, past Corbalton into the Reisk,
nearly an eight-mile point The following day was very good in
both Kildare and Meath, Cryhelp furnishing a good fox and good

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 175

sound upland grass in the former, while the Meath hounds began
with a hunting run from Allenstown (the master's park), and
wound up with a very enjoyable forty minutes from Rathmore vt'd
Gilston to Allenstown.

On Friday the same pack met at Trim, in rain so soaking that
I saw one of the best of their light-weights turn homewards.
From Trimlestown Gorse they had a very wide ring, at capital
sustained space ; another departure from the same gorse after a
short delay, then a recapitulation of the first couple of miles of
the run, and a subsequent bend towards New Haggard, near which
point I believe they failed to account for their quarry — a very
good day's sport, though severe on horses, and not too pleasant
for the human race. In the Queen's County Mr. Hamilton Stubber
was at Timogue on Wednesday; found foxes abounding every-
where, but defective earth-stopping spoilt what might have proved
a very good day — this part of his territory riding comparatively
light and springy still.

Your contemporary (the Saturday Review], I see, has told us
in his wise caustic way that we hunt too much. Was it in
deference to his pandect, or in consideration of a limited liability
stable, that I forbore from pursuit on Thursday, and so lost a
good day in either Kildare or Meath ? If this weather lasts, we
shall all perforce subscribe to some of his doctrinaire views.

The recent death of Mr. French, of Ardsallagh, in the County
Meath, has put many families in mourning, and caused wide gaps
in the hunting array. His death was the result of a kick from a
young horse in the hunting-field, on the occasion of the Meath
hounds meeting at Dunshaughlin, some five or six weeks ago.
He was a good sportsman, a staunch preserver of foxes in his
extensive coverts, and entered all his family to the royal sport
early. Your columns recorded last summer the sad yachting
disaster by which Mr. French lost his son, and many a friend and
companion.

"Multis ille bonis fiebilis occidit."

i76 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Mr. French's death stops the Louth hounds for a week; Mr.
Filgate, their master, being his son-in-law. Hunting has this
season been fearfully prodigal of life and limb in men and
horses.

Let me finish the year's hunting in this letter — I mean that
modest portion thereof that comes within my power of seeing and
hearing. Saturday, the 3oth December, the last hunting day in
Ireland, England, and Scotland, of 1876, was, so far as Kildare
went — and with that pack I throw in my lot — anything but a
red-letter epoch. II pluit averse was the only way to describe the
torrents of the morning up to 10.30 a.m., to which succeeded a
clear warm afternoon, whose fineness and serenity were only
broken by a single shower. Belgard Gorse was the first draw.
The last time we were there was in fog ; a clear sky did not
improve the position, for the hounds were inside a park wall.
The field, if like good boys they did what the master told them,
were half-bogged in a bit of heavy, soaked plough outside. There,
with one or two false starts, to diversify proceedings, we stayed
for an hour or more. At last we heard or saw, by such sema-
phores as hats raised a long distance off, that the fox had broken
and gone away. When we emerged into grass-land from plough,
the leaders were half a mile in front, the rear rank half a mile
behind the middle division. Our fox ran to a small plantation
near Tallaght Covert; then, wholly unpressed, wandered back
towards Belgard, turned to the right, and got safely to the green
hills by Castle Tymon ruins. Castlebagot and its gorse were
foxless to-day, and this is all I can say of a bad day's sport and
a large field up to 3.30 or so p.m. There was lots of fencing,
big and little, brook jumping, tumbling, and all that to many
constitutes the fun of the fair. Thursday last in Kildare, and its
three runs from Cryhelp, Hatfield, and Moorhill, was a contrast
to this lymphatic day. I may recur to it by-and-by, if time permits.

While we were having a good day near Trim with the Meath
hounds, the stag-hounds (Ward Union) had by all accounts even

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 177

a better. It was a by-day — not much bruited about, so the field
was most select. The object was the capture of " London," the
outlaw, and it was effected after a chase of three hours and fifteen
minutes ; but the poor beast had had too much, and grass feeding
told its tale, for he died soon afterwards.

Mr. Maxwell's harriers had also a brilliant run with a hare
over the Fairy House course, three miles, at top speed.

178 HIBERNIA VENA2ICA.

XIII.

" This castle hath a pleasant seat : the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."

Trim — Trimlestown and Lord Langford — Cryhelp — Westmeath — Water-
jumping—Kilkenny — Kildare, etc.

" IN Troy there lies the scene," says the poet of all time. For
Troy, we must this time read Trim ; not so storied, perhaps, as
the mighty Ilium which is now disclosing its treasures to the
archaeologist, but still very ancient, very historic ; the scene of
much fierce debate with sword and tongue (for the Irish Parlia-
ment was held here at one time, and its sieges are past counting) ;
very ecclesiastical (for, if tradition be reliable, St. Patrick, earliest
of nepotists, planted one nephew as abbot or bishop in Trim,
while another overlooked his clerical flock in the neighbouring
Dunshaughlin). What is far more to our purpose is the fact that
it is commanded by a branch of the Meath line, and therefore
very accessible once or twice a day from the metropolis; that it
has a good hotel and hunting stables ; and that it is in the heart
of a splendid hunting district. Trim to me always suggests the
corporal, whom Sterne has made coeval with the English tongue ;
but a greater than Corporal Trim stands on that fine Corinthian
column as you enter the town — even the great Duke of Wellington,
who was born close by, at Dangan Castle, who represented the
borough of Trim while it existed, and who probably, we imagine,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 179

during his holidays, learnt in the neighbouring fields those lessons
of venerie which stood him in such good stead during the tedium
of the Peninsular warfare, and during the allied occupation of
France. Few towns in Ireland are richer in castellated fragments
than Trim, one tower being the highest of the sort I can
remember; and one cannot help thinking that in the days of
bows and cloth-yard shafts the besiegers must have had far the
best of the shooting, for the warriors on its airy parapets must
have presented a very small mark indeed to the bowmen of Cressy
and Poictiers. By the way, Henry V. of England was imprisoned
in one of these towers by order of Richard II.

But we wax historic. What says the proverb about a live
jackass being better than a dead lion ? So, failing the lion, let us
come to the fox and his haunt. First passing over the old bridge
through which the mighty Boyne in majestic flood is hurrying on
to Drogheda and the sea, in some two miles or so on the northern
bank of the Boyne, after passing some splendid mills, we come
to a green-swarded lane, nearly a mile long, which has evidently
been an avenue to yonder ruined pile of 16th-century style, with
embattled towers and projecting windows, whence once the lords
of Trimlestown surveyed their ancestral domains. Two or
three large grass fields will bring you to a low-lying snug gorse,
very secluded, where I should think foxes were rarely absent.
Nor was it unoccupied to-day. How many harboured there I
know not. One breaks away over what looks a beautiful grass
line, though the Boyne would cut it short, if he preserved in a
straight, after a mile or so. Not knowing the topography, I could
not say what covert the fox pointed for — perhaps New Haggard
would be a promising venture — but very soon he bent to the right,
crossed the green lane I referred to, and swept down by the old pile
I spoke of a few sentences back. Here one of the Boyne's tribu-
taries, usually a modest rivulet, flowed down in full spate as turbid
as the Tiber. There is one inviting-looking spot only there, and
some rails of unknown stiffness at the far side. Lord Langford,

j8o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

who was riding a very smart four-year-old — a Blood Royal, I
fancy, and big of heart as that race prove themselves — plunges in,
swims against the barrier, and fortunately breaks it away. Mr.
Purdon follows him. We, the polloi, had the most cogent
reason for declining the bold lead. Not that we were dry ; those
who, like myself, had ridden well-nigh twenty miles hither, had
little to boast of in that respect, for the day was one long down-
pour— clatter and patter, the former representing the horse, the
latter the dropping rain. But we were, one and all, struck with
hydrophobia most virulently. So, coasting along the river-side,
we came to a bridge, while the hounds ran to us by a farm-house ;
so that our pusillanimity or caution was actually rewarded. Now,
I hear, we are going towards Kildalkey. I hope so, for the sake
of the geographical unities. At any rate, I can see for myself that
we are going towards the regions of the setting sun, and perhaps, if
the hounds hold on, we may find ourselves by-and-by at Mullingar.
The outlook now is over rather swampy grass fields — not bad riding
at all, but very widely ditched, where the hesitators often remain
on the wrong side ; but a turn to the left brings us quickly to small
inclosures, an odd bit of malignant holding plough, three or four
doubles, and singles of extra size. In a few minutes more hounds
have checked by a farmstead (Mr. Potterton's, I believe), but the
fox has run down a hedgerow, and in a minute they are off again
and crossing the Trim road, running by a small plantation, and
then getting into an area of low-lying pastures, drained by deep
brooks. Another inclination to the right, and we are face to face
with one of these rhenes. Mr. Peter Murphy, on a very smart
four-year-old colt, by The Coroner from Prima Donna, gives us a
good lead, and most get over, though the last thing I saw was
a sportsman on the bank, pulling at a bridle which belonged to
an engulfed steed. Now we are on the Trimlestown brook again,
where Lord Langford had his swim forty or fifty minutes ago.
What an advantage it was to be a stranger in the land, the waving
line seems so straight! Our next step is to the original gorse, and

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 181

here we had a pause of perhaps ten minutes or twelve, and these
we may utilize to take some stock of the surroundings. Among
the strangers or visitors are Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy,
who rode yesterday in, Kildare, or rather in the Wicklow side of
the Kildare country, over a line the very antithesis of what we
have now crossed (Mrs. Candy's young bay mare of to-day is a
very promising one indeed), General the Hon. L. Curzon Smythe,
Lord Rossmore, and M. C. Macdonald Morton. Three sportsmen
who have occupied the " sick bay," as the sailors term it, for some
time, are out again, and full of ride as usual— the Earl of Howth,
Colonel Fraser, V.C., and Mr. Trotter. Among the lighter weights,
the Hon. Captain Rowley on his good grey, Captain R. Low on the
Crow, Captains Crosbie and Fitzgerald, and the Messrs Murphy
have been very well carried near the pack, and so has young Mr.
Trotter ; the Hon. H. Bourke, Mr. Hanley, Mr. Barnewell, and
Mr. Dunne have been revelling in the big fences. But our fox is
off again, and in a mile or so (a repetition of the morning line)
we are once more at the original bathing-place. The line then
leads through Mooretown towards New Haggard, and I hear in
twenty minutes or twenty-five the fox was lost. As every boot was
now full of water, every coat saturated, and horses, after carrying
many pounds of liquid measure beyond their proper burdens, and
over deep land, must have had well-nigh enough, I fancy a general
dispersion took place. I did not await it, trotting homewards
(a big trot it was) so soon as I reached the highway to Trim.
Saturday in Kildare was more remarkable for the size of the field
than the quality of the sport I think I alluded to it in my last
letter.

It is a pleasant thing to find hunting men returning to their
old hunting grounds even after a long interval. Lord Oranmore
has located a very strong stud at Johnstown for the Kildare
hounds; and I hear Captain Boulderson's horses (lyth Lancers)
will soon help to fill the neighbouring stables. Mr. Dundas is,
I think, the recentest arrival in the county Meath, where he has

1 82 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

made Kilcarty his hunting quarters. Proselytes are pouring
in, but there is room for all, even in Dunboyne, Dunshauglin,
and Ratoath, while Naas and Sallins have still a few vacancies.
With Saturday the hunting chronicle for the expiring 1876 ought,
properly speaking, to close. There are, however, one or two recent
rubrical days, which time and space force me to slur over at the
moment of writing, that may now be recurred to with advantage.
Before doing so, let me illustrate the present condition of hunting
Ireland by two pregnant facts within my own experience. Glanc-
ing over the fixtures for early January, my eye caught " The
Club House, Kilkenny, for Monday, at eleven." I telegraphed
to a friend on the spot on Saturday night ; his answer was not
reassuring — country much flooded, or words to that effect —
by which I gathered that the Nore and its tributaries had been
overflowing their banks, and that the valleys beside them were
unridable. Now, Kilkenny is some eighty miles from Dublin,
and the only railway facility for reaching that sporting city is a
train that, starting from Kingsbridge terminus at 9 something a. m.,
lands you on the outskirts of Kilkenny at 11.40, and virtually,
if very punctual, brings you to the meeting-place at or about
noon. Now, the prospect of catching hounds an hour after they
had left the tryst — and then, perhaps, see them enacting the
part of otter-hounds rather than fox-hounds — was not inviting
enough, even with one's imagination fired by the accounts of
brilliant sport which the pack has been showing this season ;
so the eye, sent wandering again over hunting programmes, rests
delightedly on the Ward Union stag-hounds at Culmullen cross-
roads on Monday, the ist, at i p.m. Now, a heart that is humble
might find happiness here. Culmullen is celebrated as a fox
covert — celebrated, too, for the runs which the stags have given
when started from its gentle undulations. Standing on high, sound
land, moreover, it is comparatively free from the surrounding
plague of water. Culmullen for me, then ! A hunting we will
go ! Alas ! the post, which reached me just when I ought

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 183

to be preparing to start, brought the unwelcome tidings that
the Ward Union authorities had determined to forego, not only
this charming meet, but all others, till dry weather returned.
I am not astonished, only disappointed. The Ward Union area
is not a very large one ; it is for the most part a rich grassy basin,
much affected by flood and rain, and the process of kneading
this soft stuff three times a week cannot be beneficial to the
farming interests. Of course the decision is a just and right one,
though I wish it had taken effect for the first time on Wednesday
next instead of New Year's Day.

"Turn we now" (as the chronicler in that most charming
book of fable, the " Morte d' Arthur," continually suggests) to
Kildare and its hounds at Dunlavin on Thursday last, premising
first of all that this thriving inland town is the capital of a fine
upland region of grass, many feet above the sea, and most
unaffected by the recent deluging influences. Carlow men very
often swell the fields at this place. The Queen's County, too,
sends her quota occasionally, while Newbridge and the Curragh
send their best-mounted representatives there, for the banks in the
whole of this region require a well-educated handy horse, with
a leg to spare and some quickness of eye. The weather, strange
to narrate, was very fine ; and now the cavalcade is trotting
off to Cryhelp Gorse, the Baron de Robeck's property — needless
to say, always full of foxes, and foxes generally of a stout, long-
running caste. The find was very quick, and the usual rush
followed to the small gate, which gives egress when the fox —
as on the present occasion — heads Copelandwards. He did
not persevere on this line, but, inclining to the left, seemed
bound for the mountains, a few miles eastwards ; but, holding on
still to the left, he kept above and parallel to a bit of boggy
land which runs in here ; then crossed the Dunlavin road, by
what used to be the Cryhelp School-house, and seemed in
full swing for Lemonstown Moat. Headed here most probably,
he turned towards Cryhelp again ; but, finding a vacancy in

i84 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

the borough of Tober, he filled it, and was not disturbed by
petition or anything else from the seat. The time was nearly
forty minutes; the run extremely fast and almost unchecked
throughout. Mr. Burke, of the ;th Dragoon Guards, got well
away through the gate I referred to, and held his place through-
out; so did Mr. Brunskill, of the 4th Foot, on that admirable
hunter, Sportsman, who seems as good this season as he was
last year ; and Mr. H. de Robeck sent his bay mare along
in a style worthy of his father the Baron. Dirty coats and
crushed hats bore witness to rotten banks and unexpected ditches.
Mr. Brunskill lost his hat in the gallop, but the pace was too
good, and his place too good, to give it a thought. I hear
Dunlavin and its hatters were equal to the emergency.

The Bowery Gorse has become light and hollow below, and
did not hold a fox to-day ; but Hatfield, drawn last week, was
ready with foxes in duplicate and triplicate. Two ran nearly the
same line, and rather spoilt a run which began towards Halvers-
town ; next crossed Mr. Kilbee's large pastures towards Dunlavin ;
then, winding through Logatrina, ended at Tober, where the fox
or foxes were given up.

Moorhill Glen was next drawn, and the hounds were presently
seen streaming on for Branoxtown ; next crossing the park wall
of Harristown, and racing over that wide extent of grass known
as Rochestown, they sent their fox into the blackthorns (where
he was joined by sundry other foxes ; but there is no reason to
suppose a change was made there) ; through the covert, through
the lands of Geganstown, and Ardenode, and Mount Cashel ;
thence over the Ballymore Eustace road, as if the still distant
Hollywood was his aim ; but, whether headed or finding his
power failing, our fox now crossed the large pastures which lead
into Moorehill, and here there was a slight check. This allowed
him to steal away towards Branoxtown, and get into a sewer.
The Kildare bitches were sailing along in this forty-five minutes
at about their best pace, starting on good terms with their fox,

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 185

and pressing him very hard. The pace required good speed and
condition in hunters to keep anywhere nigh them, even in the
earlier stages — the hesitation on the return to Moorehill being
about the only check or pause in the circuit.

Thursday, the 28th, was also a capital day in Westmeath,
producing certainly one of the finest runs of the season. The
county pack met at Mosstown, and drew the old stick covert
blank. In the new one there was a tenant, but he was very hard
to dislodge ; in the mean time, news came of a fox who had just
jumped out of a hedgerow. The hounds were put on, but
nothing good resulted from it Grieve was next visited, and,
strange to say, found empty. The hill covert of Middleton,
however, produced a good fox, who started at once, with the pack
near him, in the direction of Ballynagore, which point he did not
reach ; for, turning to the left, he made Ballinwire, and thence
ran close to the town of Kilbeggan, where he turned short to the
right, and saved himself in a drain. It was a very sharp fifty-
eight minutes over a good country, the hounds doing their work
by themselves, for they had beaten off the field, which in this
neighbourhood is composed of hard-riding elements. A lady,
Miss Daniel, met with a sad accident in the pursuit, as her horse
rolled over her, broke her leg, and dislocated her shoulder, not
to speak of bruises. She is, I rejoice to hear, going on very well
so far. Their next day was at New Forest, which held a fox
who was lost without much sport, and the rest of the day was
wholly uneventful.

I have just heard of a proprietor whose coverts are always
open to foxes, as well as to a large head of game, who did an
act last week, which, I think, most hunting men will say was
worthy of general imitation. The county hounds, on drawing his
covert, found, 'tis true, but only a fox caught in a trap. The lord
of the manor instantly sent for the gentlemen who walk about in
velveteen attire and siller ha'e to spare (aye, and gold and notes
in battue time, I fancy), and then and there gave them their conge.

1 86 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Would that my sense of probability allowed me to transfer to
your columns some magnificent hunting episodes I read of- in the
dailies. Here, in one journal, is a pack of harriers (a right good
pack they are, too) hunting an outlying fox " at least nine miles."
"There was not a check from find to finish" the fox, when he got
to ground, " being viewed not more than the length of his brush
before the leading hound." In the same I read of a chase
beginning between one and two p.m., lasting four hours and a
half, while the hounds viewed their noble game a mile before they
took him. Certainly, there is a moon just now ; but really !
How many hours did Falstaff fight ? The real fact being that
the magnificent run alluded to lasted three hours and twenty
minutes. I shall give a sketch of it by-and-by.

While making these observations in the bitterness and dis-
appointment of my spirit, lo ! " Through the hush'd air the
whitening shower descends." By morning light there was a very
fair sprinkling of snow over the face of nature. It was freezing,
too ; but before nine o'clock a strong sun was clearing the roads,
while the well-watered fields were absorbing much of the snowfall.
Sommerville, the appointed place for the Meath hounds, is a long
way off, but, certes, 'tis well worth an expedition. I noticed the
more salient features of this fine well-wooded, well- watered park,
and the aspect of the country around it, so recently in one of my
letters, that I may pass them by now. The drip from the trees
caused by the thawing snow, probably banished foxes from
Sommerville woodlands. Walsh's Gorse, close by, almost abut-
ting on the park, was tenanted, and I hear its fox is a small
compact one, quite a celebrity, who trusts to his pace and dash,
and doesn't mean to allow his mask or pads to grace the Meath
kennel doors. He has given capital gallops, but has never yet
been in imminent danger ; perhaps he had rather a bad quarter
of an hour to-day, but still the result was the same. I think it
was high noon when the hounds sang their paean of trouvaille
in Walshe's Gorse. A quick find it was, very little coquetting

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 187

or feinting round the strong gorse, and away he goes towards
Sommerville and the land of mills, brooks, drains, and water
meadows. The line is much the same as the last time I visited
these parts, when his Royal Highness was in the hunting field.
After about a couple of miles, Athcarne Castle, a modernized
square old keep, is reached. Then the line is over water
meadows, somewhat, I imagine, of the nature and consistency
of oriental paddy fields : the fences are banks and brooks, brooks
and banks, for every ditch is now become, for the time being, a
rivulet. The biggest of these water-ways is " the Hurley," where
Mr. Dunville lost a very good mare last year. Hounds are racing
with a scent which such atmospheric conditions as to-day's, plus
well-watered and recently flooded grass fields, are sure to con-
tribute (a noble master of hounds told me he never saw the pack
go faster than to-day) ; horses are still fresh, for they have not
been going more than twenty-five minutes, if so much, and the
fences have not been very recurrent ; but the grief was con-
siderable, the absorption of muddy water great. We are now
inclining towards a hill (one of the chain to which Garristown,
Primatestown, and Kilmoon belong), Hawksley, or Hawksworth,
I think 'tis called — a very gentle elevation, rising out of the
surrounding flat basin, as the hand pivot out of the flat watch
dial. Men are settling into their places for a good thing, when
a check occurs near a farm-house ; the fox has stopped, and run
his foil. For a field or two the hounds pick up the broken thread
and tell us the news in the joyfullest notes ; but the fields are now
stained to a degree ; our quarry knows the use of a brook in
baffling hounds and their huntsman. After nearly half a mile
retrogade over brookland, we have to give it up. Now let us get
to the road the best way we can. More brooks in cold blood,
with banks more than ever rotten and broken and crumbled.
But they must be got over, unless you mean to dine d la belle
etoile on watercresses and such Lenten fare, and all faced their
perils most gaily, I must say. Talk of the democracy of hunting !

1 88 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Here is the greater democracy of bathing (in costume). There in
one ditch, a padre and a horse-breaker may be seen wallowing
together ; Lords, Commons, and medicine in an adjoining one !
Presently, I see a manly form taking off his coat and shaking it —
I suppose, to clear the pockets. The ladies' horses behaved very
well. I did not see a single immersion, and not a few were out
to-day.

The cavalcade is now reunited on the road; we can take
stock of our party. Mrs. Dunville has had a capital survey of
the water party from her hunting phaeton, which to-day holds
an extra passenger — one of the neatest fox-terriers I ever saw.
Louth, whose hunting list has been temporarily cancelled from
the melancholy cause I referred to, is in great force ; among her
daughters being Mrs. Osborne, the Misses Gradwell (three), and
Messrs. Jameson, Tiernan, M'Naughten, Pepper, Osborne, and
many more of the followers of Mr. Filgate's musicians. Among
the visitors are the Earl of Howth, Mr. Trotter, Mr. Dunville,
Lord Algernon Lennox, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy,
Colonel Fraser, V.C., Lord Rossmore, the Hon. H. Bourke
(though he belongs to Meath), Captain Low, the Messrs. Hone,
Captain C. Ponsonby, Mr. and Miss Coleridge. Dublin and its
Garrison were, I think, wholly unrepresented, and, strange to say,
the Ward Union men sent very few champions to the white list
to-day. We are now en route for Corballis Gorse — a strong one
still, though half has been cut down. The find was quick, the
exodus quick also. Scent seemed very good, for the hounds got
well ahead of their followers in a few fields, but the race was most
uneventful. A series of gaps in half-a-dozen fields led us into
Corbalton Park ; then succeeded a game of hide-and-seek in
plantations and shrubberies by the avenue, at which the fox got
worsted, for in a few minutes, I think, as I was starting home-
wards, I heard the who-whoop for five or six minutes seemingly
inevitable. Lismullen, I hear, produced a third fox, who was
taken into Dowdstown at good pace, but the pack were here

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 189

stopped. Mr. S. Garnett, I grieve to hear, met with rather a severe
accident from a collision. As we were riding to the latter gorse
my attention was called to some wire stretched along a boundary
fence by the road side (not treacherous wire run through thorns,
or hanging from tree to tree, but with its legitimate supports of
posts) ; on either side telegraph posts had been erected, in one
case to show where the wire ceased and the fence was open to
jump ; in the other, to indicate a set of sliding posts and rails,
through which a hunt might pass with very little trouble or delay.
The story goes that the present owner of the property had lost two
good runs by the wire barrier, and that when he came into pos-
session he talked about it to the farmer in occupation, Mr. Cassidy,
who promptly carried out his ideas in the efficient manner I have
described, or attempted to describe. Wire is comparatively rare
in Dublin and Meath ; but I do know one farm in the Ward
Union country where wire has been suspended from posts, or
rather run through posts on either side of the road, the posts
standing on the banks — the original barrier. Now the posts have
given way in most cases, and the wire is hanging in a limp sort
of fashion half way down the bank, where many a well-trained
hunter would plant his fore feet before springing. The wire has
ceased to be of much avail as a fence ; as a snare, it is capable of
any amount of mischief. I mention this circumstance in the hope
that Mr. Dunville's (for he is the landlord) happy notions may be
carried out here by the occupier. I saw myself a very narrow
escape from an accident at the same fence. There is a con-
siderable drop into the road, and broken knees and broken necks
seem not unlikely results from a turn over — horresco referens /
There were a few very nice young horses out to-day. Mr. Morris
was on a very neat mare by the Knave of Hearts, Mr. Saurin rode
a thoroughbred, a son of Kingsley's (by King Tom). I hear this
pack killed a fox in a most patient and persevering manner
yesterday, running and walking for nearly two hours ; the find in
Clonabraney.

1 90 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

I alluded in my last letter to a very remarkable run, in which
the outlaw deer London was taken. Let me now supply the
particulars. The date was Friday, the 2Qth ult, when Mr. Turbitt,
accompanied by Messrs. Hone, O'Reilly, Murland, D'Arcy,
Wilson, and Jem Brindley, the whip, went forth in quest of the
truant with nine and a half couple of hounds, of whom four
couples were from Mr. Turbitt's pack of drag-hounds. I should
add that Mr. Turbitt held the horn in the absence of Charley
Brindley. At 12.45 they found their quarry in Knockcommon
Wood ; his course lay through Loughlinstown, by Slater's Gorse,
to the hill of the rock into Somerville, where he jumped the park
wall yft. high, thence along the river to Balrath police barracks ;
and here, after a very quick burst of twenty-seven minutes, came
a check. The line was hit off again in Ballymagarney Wood, and
it led on through Irishtown, Temorn, to White's Cross, by Garlins-
toun, to the commons of Duleek, by the Lough of Clonlusk, to
Sodstown, and here the deer was safely taken in the river, at 4.5
p.m., but died presently of exhaustion, stiffening like a fox. All
I hear went well ; but Mr. J. Hone, Mr. Wilson on a four-year-
old, half-brother to Umpire, Mr. O'Reilly on his old chestnut, and
Jem Brindley on Safety, alone saw the finish. Only one couple
of hounds was wanting at the capture.

Wednesday was a dies non so far as hunting in Meath was
concerned. A south-easter, laden with a vast amount of water,
swept over the eastern shores of Ireland, involving the almost
total suspension of traffic by rail and road, and flooding everything
within reach of its influence. The Meath hounds came to Clifton
Lodge; but hunting under such conditions was a mauvaise plaisan-
terie of which no one seemed ambitious ; so the surrounding foxes
had a week or ten days' respite. Whether the violence of the
rainstorm in Kildare was partially broken by the eastern barrier
of the Dublin and Wicklow Hills I know not. At any rate, the
usual select party went down from Sallins station to Athy with the
dog pack, found no weather to mar (much less veto) hunting, and,

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 191

as a reward for their adventure, had a very satisfactory afternoon
and a fine long hunting run over a good, sound, ridable line, with
the opening twenty minutes as fast as need be wished for.
Avoiding the Barrow valley, the hounds first drew the moat of
Ardskull Gorse; but for once this season it was foxless.
Narraghmore Wood, however, the second venture, was, as usual,
well stocked ; and the hounds, settling to one, ran him at great
pace over those pastures which the winding Greise drains, Sprats-
town being left on the right hand ; thence over the hill ridge by
Blackrath, down the narrow valley, and up to " Mat Conran's "
hill snuggery, where there was a pause, but only a brief one, the
track leading on over the sound grass fields to the eastward of the
gorse, across the Ballitore road, and into Ballynure, Mr. Henry
Carroll's park, till this stout fox found a refuge in a burrow not far
from Grange. The Kildare hounds had the good fortune not only
to be able to hunt on this day of storm, but to give their followers
a very fine run, which could not have been much short of nine
miles. All the other packs within my ken found it simply im-
possible to attempt hunting. The Meath hounds, as recorded,
tried it and failed ; the Kilkenny hounds were equally weather-
baffled. In both the latter fields were men to whom weather is no
personal consideration, who abound in good hunters in going trim,
and yet their voices were against hunting. By-the-by, on that
Monday when the telegraph warned me to turn back from
Kilkenny and its hunting grounds, this pack had very fine sport,
and within a few miles of the famous city itself. The morning
began with a ring from Troy's Wood, where Mr. James Poe's strict
preservation makes rather a small covert always a holding one.
Several coverts were then drawn blank, and a number of the field
rode homewards ; the few who stuck to the hounds had their
reward. From Sutcliffe's Gorse a good fox broke for Ballykeefe,
but was turned from this point, and forced to run past Castle
Blunden through Kilcreene, by Grange Wood, Dunmana, and
Ballycallan, to Knockroe, where pursuers only numbered three —

1 92 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Colonel Chaplin, the master, riding Shiner (whom I have often
mentioned in your columns), Major Bunbury, and Captain
Bunbury, of the Scots Greys. Where the hounds were stopped I
cannot say ; but I heard they killed in the gorse.

The same Monday brought Mr. Hamilton Stubber also a very
first-class run. It began from Lennon's Gorse, and passing
Moyadd and Chatsworth, led on to Castlecomer, where a flooded
river stopped the fox's career for a few minutes, and when he
summoned up resolution to try it again he was run into. I heard
that in breaking up this fox one of the pack got choked by a bone.
Lord Waterford also had a capital Monday, killing after a fine
pursuit, but particulars have not reached me yet.

On Friday, the 5th, the Meath card invited all and singular
to meet the county pack at Summerhill, Lord Langford's park, to
which meeting-point your readers have frequently accompanied
me this season. Nature, wearied out with the tumults of the past
seven or eight days, was hushed in the completes! repose; a bright
luminous atmosphere was lit up by a strong sun ; the rushing and
roaring of innumerable streams, hurrying with their watery tribute
to the sea, was comparatively stilled, and much of the surface
water had been absorbed during the last forty-eight hours. Alto-
gether the outlook was very cheerful, and the day was gaudy in
the extreme; there was a sting in the south-easterly wind which
might lead one to expect a good scent over the well-soaked grass
lands. The fine outlines of Lord Langford's handsome .residence
never, to my eye, showed to greater advantage than in the floods
of light which enveloped it to-day, revealing every bit of its archi-
tectural symmetry, while the court-yard in front was gay with the
many-coloured figures who passed and repassed the stone steps ;
ladies driving, ladies riding; scarlet pursuers, black-and-white
pursuers ; while cynosure of all who ride to hunt and not hunt to
ride were the dog pack, bright of colour and bright of condition,
shepherded by Goodall, J. Bishop, and young Rees; for, strangely
enough, I hear the second whip in Meath and the first in West-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 193

meath have both been temporarily disabled by kicks, and both on
the same date — last Tuesday.

The inviting forenoon and the interregnum of two whole
days without hunting have brought out the Meath array in great
numbers and force,lhough Mr. S. Garnett's pleasant presence from
the hunting field is not a little missed. I alluded, I think, to his
accident last Tuesday evening when hunting with this pack at
Lismullen ; let me now state that his shoulder was put out, but,
most fortunately, Colonel Fraser and one or two more of his
friends slipped it into its socket then and there, so he may be
etpected to be in the saddle ere many days. The soldiers were
represented by Captain Graves Sawle, A.D.C., Captains Wardrop
and Yatman, and one or two more of the 3rd Dragoons ; while
among the visitors were Lords Rossmore and Algernon Lennox,
Mr. C. Macdonald Morton, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy,
the Hon. Captain Harbord, Captain R. Barton, and Mr. Rose ;
and from Kildare came the Earl of Clonmell, Mr. W. Forbes,
Mr. A. More O'Ferrall, Mr. Percy and Lady Annette La Touche,
Lord Cloncurry, Mr. F. Rynd, Mr. Blacker, Captain Davis, etc.
Summerhill, according to its wont, abounded in foxes. One was
rattled about the woods for some time, taken along towards Agher,
and killed. Then followed more park-hunting in Agher, some
refreshing of hunting pilgrims at Summerhill, an ineffectual visit
to the Bullring Gorse, less excitement than usual at the Bullring
double (by the way, this may be evaded by jumping two small
singles, which ain't equal to a double), and then we are once more
drawn up outside Rahinstown Gorse, which we drew successfully
only a few days ago. Suspense is very short here. A quick find
is followed by a quick exit. The country round here is most
unlike the Ward Union side of Meath ; peat alternates with
gravelly hills, and even the better land seems to have been moor
at one time. So down we go one of these gravelly pitches, and,
ascending another very sharp hill, see the pack streaming away
over a bit of pasture land, carrying a head which looked as if a

o

194 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

fox had little chance with them to-day. In two fields more there
is a road — the Enfield road, I think — over which the pack flash,
throwing up their heads in a field on the far side. All in vain are
forward casts ; so Goodall takes them back half a field, and in a
minute they are hunting away, taking the line by a bit of unre-
claimed bog on through Baconstown lands, across the Enfield
road, into Mr. Dillon's farm, then across another road as if
Cappagh Gorse were our fox's point, when a bend to the right
brings us into Ryndville ; and here, knowing that the earths were
open (it is a Kildare covert), I left the hounds still hunting. Had
it not been for the long check at the road, this fox would have
been obliged to travel very fast to reach his goal, for scent was
serving and good. It was not a nice country to cross; the fences
were ragged and trappy, and the inclosures small for the most
part, but the land rode far lighter than might have been antici-
pated. I should mention that Mr. Waller declined to draw
Garradice and Beltrasna Corses to-day, owing to his wish to avoid
poaching the wet grass lands around them.

The best gallop the Wexford hounds have had recently was
on Thursday week, forty minutes from Dunbrody Flax Mills.
The Kildare hounds ran very fast, I hear, from Elverstown to
Punchestown on Tuesday; while the Westmeath hounds gave
those who remained out long enough to see it a very fine run
from Clonlost to Knockdrin (Sir Richard Levinge's fine park) via
Clondriss and Edmonton and back again, on the evening of the
same day.

The Kildare hounds had a bumper meet at Courtown Gate on
Saturday, the 6th inst., the Meath and Ward Union men swelling
the array very considerably. A good fox, found at once at Cour-
town in a clump of trees, took the hounds along at capital pace
by Laragh, over the brook to Lady Chapel, as if he was bound for
Colestown in Meath ; but, though within a few fields of Maynooth,
he did not persevere on this tack, but made his way to the much
nearer Taghadoe Gorse, and thence on to Dowdstown. The very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 195

few who saw the beginning of this run enjoyed it extremely, though
some of them did not get over the brook without a thorough
drenching.

A second fox, found in Cullen's Gorse, ran through Dowdstown
Lands to Taghadoe, and thence over a fine country, but in a most
circuitous fashion, back to Taghadoe. A rainstorm coming on
probably killed the early scent, and after this most of the distant
comers dispersed, few following the pack to Lodge Park. J wind
up with an extract from the Pau Gazette of the nth ult., just
received : " Captain Cosby, as he rode so splendidly his horse,
elicited much admiration for his noble bearing and manly erecti-
tude." The ex-master of the Irish hounds was, in fact, feted un-
consciously.

P.S. — The Meath hounds have begun the week right royally.
On Monday they had a brilliant thirty-four minutes, from Gibstown
to Dunmoe, which only five saw satisfactorily — Lieut. -Colonel
Fraser, V.C., Lord Algernon Lennox, Captain Trotter, Mr. Walker
(I think), and Goodall. On Tuesday they were blessed with the
most driving scent, and they forced a fox from Corbalton to
Gerrardstown, thence by Dunshauglin to Lagore, on by the Poor-
house Gorse to Ratoath village, and here they lost him. The
pace was very animating, the line some of the cream of the Ward
country, and the distance very considerable. I must recur to this
when space is freer.

The Kildare hounds had a fine long hunting run on Tuesday
afternoon from the Downshire, a very fast fifty-five minutes from
Tinonode in the evening. The Ward men had a good gallop on
Wednesday.

In my observations on Mr. Morrogh's hunter (who is since
dead) I never meant to cast any reflection on Farrell's Repository
in Dublin, so well known to all amateurs of horses. As a matter
of fact, I have since learned that the horse showed symptoms of
tetanus soon after arriving there. Copers cope there, as at Tatt's
and everywhere else, but always within legitimate bounds.

196 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

XIV.

1 Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin."

Courtown company— Corbalton chase — Punchestown programme — Dangan
Bridge — Sam Reynell's death — Mr. Burton Persse.

I WILL begin this letter with words of good augury ; for surely
we are all tired of this constant omnipresent rain, which takes
all the "grit " out of our hunters, ruins our war paint and hunting
kit, makes our servants melancholy and mishippical, M.F.H.'s
testy, farmers short and reflective, and upsets the domestic coach,
from the cradle to the saddle room, from basement to attic,
in more ways than I can here undertake to narrate. The glass
is rising, and no rain worthy to be classed with either the "former"
or the " latter rain " has fallen for two whole days. Let me para-
phrase Pope's well-known couplet :

" Accept a miracle instead of wit —

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ,"
into —

" Behold the age of miracles again !
Two days have passed with very little rain ! "

The floods — to use the beautiful language of a "mighty
hunter" — no longer clap their hands. The rushing and rustling
of myriad streams and rills, all plying their watery task with
intense zeal, no longer fills the ear. The overflowing surface
water has vanished from many a furrow, leaving the grass sere
and sickly of hue as if its life blood had been poisoned. True,

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 197

there is a great deal of the vale still under the dominion of water ;
and a moonlight view of much of the low land when the air
is still is like the sheen of silver. But Smith of Deanston has
made us hopeful for the future; our hunting area is mainly
under his beneficent influence (some say too much so), and
two or three days of drying winds and cessation of showers
will put a vast deal of the country into good going order once
more. Like King Lear, "I tax ye not, ye elements." Half
a season unchecked is a good long run. Dona prasentis cape
Icetus horce is good Latin, and still better counsel. If the going
be deep, the falling is soft, and it does not require the acumen
of a Gully nowadays to tell us of the virtue of cold compresses
for many of the pains and aches that flesh inherits.

The mention of the cold-water cure brings me to Saturday,
the 6th inst., and its burden of sport in Kildare, to which I
could only allude en passant in the last budget I sent you. The
Kildare hounds met that day at Courtown Gate, which, for the
information of distant readers, I may state is not a turnpike
(we have abolished that nuisance in Ireland long ago), but a
somewhat ambitious entrance to a spacious park, where Captain
and Mrs. Davis have for some years found a capital stage for
the exercise of that hunting hospitality which is one of the
great social attractions of the royal sport, and where the Aylmer
family before them — the proprietors of the property — ever made
sport and hospitality go hand in hand. Courtown Gate is within
a mile of Kilcocfc, a most important station on the Midland
line of rails, and bringing this fixture within less than an hour
of Dublin, and not much more of many places in Western
Meath ; while it is just within hunting range of what I may
call the cis-Boyne part of Meath — of nearly all Kildare, includ-
ing the soldier population of Newbridge and the Curragh. The
country around Courtown is almost uninterruptedly pasture
land, flat, but without any tendency to peat or red bog. The
fields are large comparatively, the fences sound generally, and

198 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

mainly singles, and, on the whole, the hunting surroundings
are not very dissimilar to what the eye ranges over in many
portions of the Ward Union country. It is not to be wondered
at, then, that Mr. Mansfield had a bumper meet, and that his
chancellor of exchequer had siller to spare, as his take of half-
crowns swelled up to the amount of a good many pounds. By
the way, let me give a conundrum somebody suggested apropos
of this half-crown collection : — What would be the proper desig-
nation for the crime of robbing the collector, say hustling him
at a fence, and picking up the half-crowns when he was picking
himself up? Why, silver guilt to be sure. The overflow of
Ward Union men, who are just now flooded out of their own
dear hunting grounds, was something to see — nearly a dozen
boxes from the Broadstone terminus, and a special train to
Kilcock, Among the occupants were Lieut-Colonel Forster,
Captain Ward Bennett, Captain O'Neal, and several of the Innis-
killings ; a detachment of the 3rd Dragoon Guards ; Captain R.
Barton, Mr. Waldron, Messrs. Turbitt, Rose, Coppinger, Gore,
and Hone — of the latter name I think I counted some five or six
out — for as 'tis given to some to inherit silver spoons, the Hone
family appear to me to have a sort of birthright to good hunters,
and the faculty of riding them straight.

Among the visitors from Meath were Colonel Fraser, V.C., the
Hon. Captain Harbord, Lord Algernon Lennox, Captain and
the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Lord Langford, Captain Trotter, Mr.
Trotter, Mr. George Murphy, Mr. P. Murphy, Mr. Dunne, Mr.
Brown, Mr. M'Gerr, Mr. Rafferty. Newbridge and the Curragh
were well represented by Major Dent and some of his brother
officers of the 7th Dragoons, Captain Hanning-Lee, A.D.C.,
Mr. M'Donnell, R.H.A. ; while among the many Kildare pur-
suers were the Earl of Clonmel, the Earl of Mayo, Mr. W. Forbes
and his sons, the Hon. C. Bourke, the Hon. Maurice Bourke,
Lord Cloncurry, the Hon. E. Lawless, Mr. F. Tynte, Mr. Percy La
Touche, Mr. W. Blacker, Mr. More O'Ferrall, General Irwin, Captain

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 199

Irwin, the Baron de Robeck, Mr. D. Mahony, Mr. S. Moore and
Captain St. Leger Moore, Mr. Cook Trench, Mr. R. Bushe,
Mr. Kirkpatrick, Captain Tuthill, Mr. Gerald Brook, the Messrs.
Kennedy (three), Captain R. Mansfield, the Messrs. Rynd, etc.

The morning was mild in the extreme, but dark withal, and the
clouds seemed laden with their daily burden of rain destined to
fall ere many hours had gone by. The road men were, on the
whole, very punctual ; not so the large numbers who had entrusted
themselves to the tender mercies of the rails ; however, there is
hope for them. Courtown has held foxes of late, and right good
ones too; but the chances are strongly against their waiting
patiently for the investigating pack in these hollow, skirting planta-
tions and thin clumps, while wheels are grinding all round them,
and the clatter of a century or two of hunters and covert hacks
puts the most somnolent hen-harrier on his guard, and warns him
of peril imminent in some shape or other. Hence a find at
Courtown, when the meet is at the Gate, is far from a certainty ;
and a move to the neighbouring large gorse of Ballycaghan is
generally the order of proceeding before the business of the day
has begun in earnest. This gorse is so large, and takes so much
drawing and forcing, that the tardy and train-stayed can generally
hope to pick up the pack here, though, needless to say, they run
a certain amount of risk in the venture. To-day, however, was
a day of surprises. A fox jumped out of a small clump of trees
in the park, raced across it, and, leaping the boundary fence into
the road, started off at once in the direction of Laragh, the pack
on good terms with him, and scent evidently most serving. Now,
to jump a nasty drop into a road, for the initial fence, before nerves
are properly braced is a strong measure, and requires resolution in
man and his mount. Some did not hit on the nicest spot :
perhaps others, if they did select a good place, were not prompt
and decided enough in action. At any rate, though hounds did
not check, men and horses paused considerably, and I fancy a few
made a full stop of it Laragh Gorse is here skirted, but the river

2oo HIBERNIA VENATICA.

has to be done, and that, too, occasioned a little more delay/for
not a few good men (two who have held the horn in their turn
among them) came in for a ducking. The fox now crosses the
road which leads from Maynooth to Courtown, and appears
sailing away for Laragh Brien en route, it may be, to "the Hatchet,"
Colistown, or Mulhussey Gorse in Meath. At the road there is
a partial check for a minute or so, but Will Freeman soon hits off
the line by a quick fence, on towards Maynooth and the Midland
line ; but something or other has turned our gallant red rover,
perhaps the vision of a train, a barge, or a canal boat, and he now
turns round, and in a mile or rather more of slow hunting by
Lady Chapel lands we bring him into Taghadoe Gorse, whence,
after a few minutes, he is forced out and hunted into Dowdstown.

The first three miles of the run were very good ; and between
the leading division and the rear rank there must have been an
interval of fully a mile. Among the former were the master,
Lord Langford, Captain Trotter, W. R. Kennedy and his nephew,
the Hon. E. Lawless, Captain O'Neal, Mr. Bayley, and a few more.

Cullens Gorse, which has been appealed to so very often this
year, and never that I can remember in vain, again furnished
pabulum for sport. A very quick find, a race over a pasture field,
a fly into most sobering plough, a road and the next field gained,
crossed by a nasty quickset hedge and ditch, a smart gallop into
Taghadoe, with half-a-dozen flying fences en route, including
a quasi brook ; a jam at the gate which must have been put up
before Kildare became a fashionable hunting centre, and we are
once more sailing on towards Laragh and Courtown again ; about
half way thither two gunners and a dog scare our fox, who, unwill-
ing to give up his point, tries to compass it by a flank movement.
But all in vain, fresh obstacles apparently diverting him from his
object ; and so we wind round grass fields and get back to
Taghadoe for the third time to-day, though nof till a good many,
like Horace and his friend at Philippi,

" Turpe solum tetigere mento."

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 201

The motive cause being a double, rather lean and narrow in the
shoulder, where I saw my two predecessors involuntarily making
Catherine-wheels in mid-air. Straffan furnished the third f6x of
the day, but his pursuit to Clongowes Woods hardly calls for much
notice — the inevitable downpour closes the day. Whether it was
a sudden afflatus or contagion, I know not — whether the fact of
Meath, Ward, and Kildare meeting on a fine arena had anything
to do with thrusting, it is not for me to say. Certain it is that
men meant riding up to the motto " Be with them I will," and
to-day falls and immersions had no deterrent effect ; of both there
was a good crop, with no bad results apparently, though Major
Dent got rather a hard squeeze.

I have just read, in your sporting contemporary's last issue, of
a very fine run, which reminds me forcibly of the bard's precept :

"Whate'er you say, or write, or do,
Let probability be kept in view."

(I quote from memory, and perhaps not quite correctly.) He is
talking of last Thursday week in Meath, I rather think, when his
Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught was in the field, and
proceeds to say, " Slater's Gorse was then the order, and from this
a downright ' rattler' instantly took his departure, going at a
terrific pace to Corbalton, and nearly as straight as a rule to
Trim, when he got to ground after two and a half hours without
a single check." This is, indeed, a paper chase, evolved, like the
camel, from inner consciousness. I doubt much if the annals of
fox-hunting furnish a record of any run ever occupying two hours
and a half without a single check — at least not in this country,
since hounds have been bred for dash and drive. Your con-
temporary is generally accurate in his information, but in this case
our faith is severely strained.

I read also, in a " daily," a description of the gyrations of
a hare told with much minuteness of topography, and I doubt not
with great fidelity ; but when the narrator proceeds to informs us,

202 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

his readers, that the hare had pointed " his mask " to So-and-so,
the impression involuntarily steals on me that I am reading the
troubled annals of a companion of Puss in Boots, or one of that
curious and historic family !

On Monday — a fine clear day — the Ward Union hounds and
men still remained quiescent, waiting for the subsidence of the
floods and the good effects of nature's drying processes on their
well-soaked soil. The Meath hounds met at Donaghpatrick
Bridge, which is not a popular fixture, and in the estimVtion of
those whom I consulted (not having been there myself) about the
worst rendezvous in the Meath roster. As it is not prudent either
in war or its image to venture into distant lands without an assured
retreat, and the single return train on the Meath and Navan line
is dispatched on the Dublin route too early for safety or pleasure
— I mean the safety of catching it — I did not visit this meeting-
place ; which, if it did nothing else, redeemed its character, and
illustrated for the thousandth time the bonheur de rimfrevus — the
best part of fox-hunting — most gloriously. The gallop from
Gibstown to Dunmoe over a fair line and at great pace is de-
scribed to me by one of the actors in the play as most brilliant ;
and my informant is not a biassed son of the soil, and has had
a wide experience of various packs. Five got off in this gallop, '
and were about the only section of the field who saw this thirty-
four minutes really satisfactorily. I hope none of the quintette
will be offended by a publication of their names, which were
Lieut. -Colonel Fraser, V.C., Lord Algernon Lennox, Mr. Trotter,
Mr. Walker, and Goodall, the huntsman. It is a good criterion
of the quality of a run when you find the enthusiasm is un-
evaporated on the following day, and those who were "out of
it " can speak in the highest commendation still. Such was the
case on Tuesday, one of the most glorious days which the young
year has vouchsafed us hitherto. It commenced with haze and
fog, and seemed inclined to relapse into that condition by three
o'clock ; but from ten to three nothing could be imagined finer

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 203

than the atmospheric surroundings — a sun so hot that a covert
coat was a positive encumbrance ; even the ordinary heavy pink
would have been willingly exchanged for something summery and
light by most pursuers after a mile or two. The air was luminously
clear; and of wind there was absolutely none. Hardly the day
you would prophesy a burning, driving scent, with the grass at
noon still laden with dewdrops. Those who struggled for four or
five miles over those wide pastures between Corbalton and Lagore
will have a good idea of how a pack can drive a fox when they
have it all their own way — no stopping ; no interference from the
riding crowds, whom they easily distance. But I am anticipating
the sequence of events.

The Meath hounds met at Dunshaughlin village on Tuesday,
the gth instant. There is very little to say about this hunting
centre. An ugly, ragged, colourless town, set in a sea of the most
vivid and verdant grass lands — flat for the most part. I think it
about the best meet on the Meath card, taking everything into
consideration ; its accessibility by road and rail from Dublin
(Batterstown and Drumree stations are very near), as well as from
Navan, the country to which it is a portal, and the holding nature
of the quiet gorse close by — the Poor-house Gorse, which it is
part of the programme to visit always first. The wetness of the
surrounding fields, however, made Mr. Waller anxious to bring us,
if possible, into sounder and higher ground to-day, so the rule was
broken to-day pour cause. The meet was a fairly large one,
swelled by a large influx from Dublin Garrison and the Ward
Union desoeuvres sportsmen. In this division were Lord Clan-
morris, A.D.C., and Captain Crosbie, A.D.C., a good many of the
3rd Dragoon Guards, Messrs. Wardrop, Hartigan, Yatman, Barber,
Lee, Captain Bloomfield, and some Inniskillings ; Messrs. Turbitt,
Coppinger, Hone, Greenhill, and other Ward men, with Jem Brind-
ley, the whip, while among the visitors were Captain and the
Hon. Mrs. Candy, the Hon. Mr. Harbord, Lord Algernon Lennox.
Meath was at the trysting-place in great numbers and force ;

204 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

but we are now trotting on to Reisk Gorse, not a few having
lingered in the neighbourhood of the Poor-house, unwilling to
believe that the time-honoured usage could be violated. The find
in Reisk Gorse was very quick, and the way hounds raced over
the wide fields which separate this covert from Kilbrue, told us at
once that scent was all ablaze. The fox got to ground in a
burrow near the old lane-way at Kilbrue, so this stage of the
proceedings was of quick accomplishment ; a mile or two brings
us back again to Corbalton lands, which the Reisk Gorse abuts.
The plantations here yielded no music till the narrow road was
crossed, and from a clump of laurels out jumped a good fox, who
did not hang a moment, but went away straight as if for Killeen
or Dunsany Woods. These he did not reach, for, bending to the
left, he led us for about a couple of miles or rather less over grass
land of wide extent, till he reached Gerrardstown Gorse. I do
not think he entered it, but merely brushed by it, and thence his
course lay straight onwards by Dunshaughlin church, left a field or
two to the right, across the Navan road, through Mr. Morris's
farm (which those in search of a handy hunter or two might visit
with profit), then by those low grass fields which border Lagore
till we reached the boundary fence. It looks nothing — it is
nothing, really — a fine wide sloping bank, with a watery ditch in
front ; but up to this the pace has been very severe, the grass land
very holding though sound ; the day tells on hounds as well as
horses, and this boundary fence makes horses check if hounds are
still running. I see the best cob in the county in the ditch, with
his hard rider standing over him — every practicable place has
a horse jammed or refusing. Fifty yards further on I see the
hardest man in Ireland (or well-nigh it) trying in vain to extricate
one of his good stud from a boggy drain whence ropes alone can
haul him. A couple of hundred yards further you will see half
a score or more wandering, like ghosts along the Styx, by the edge
of a black sort of chasm margined by a wide, high bank, which
horses might have tried thirty minutes ago, but are too wise to

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 205

attempt now. Needless to do so ; there is a hunting gate within
a short distance. The hounds have taken their fox by the edge of
the Poor-house Gorse, over some rather swampy lands, inter-
sected by most black-hued, repell ing-looking drains. We are now
on Ballymore lands : half a mile further brings us to the verge of
Ratoath, and here we lose our fox by the edge of a brook which
he probably used for his own baffling purposes, in a small tributary
to which Goodall narrowly escaped total immersion. There was
a rumour that Kilrue Gorse would wind up the day, but the
kennels were a long way off. Most horses were beaten, and I
think there was a general feeling that enough had been done
to-day. The gallop I have just outlined for your readers was
really a splendid one for those who rode it through and through ;
for it was somewhat of a semicircle, and a road formed an arc,
which would have shortened the distance greatly, not to speak of
the heavy going. The line lay over very large pastures of old
grass, fairly fenced; and for my own part I can only recollect
jumping into one very small bit of plough in the nine or ten miles
traversed. The surprises of fox-hunting were again exemplified
here. After the first scurry from the Reisk most men concluded
that we were in for a parky, pic-nicing sort of day, interspersed
with some cub-hunting. The fine scent prevented that catastrophe,
as hounds kept working along with a will ; and as for my ex-
perience, I can aver that, starting as I did on an animal I had
hacked very fast to covert, I never saw the smallest chance of
changing to a hunter till we got to Lagore, when the glory was
virtually over, and of course the horse was not forthcoming then.

The Louth hounds, who had an interregnum of a week, began
hunting again on Tuesday, the 2nd, at Castle Bellingham, finding
lots of foxes at Bragganstown, and running three to ground.
A brace turned up next at Drumcashel, and the hounds got away
on very good terms with one. He sank the hill and swam the
Dee, which was in flood, and only to be crossed by a bridge
a mile distant ; the pack, meanwhile, went over Richardstown and

206 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Mullacurry and got to Ashville, where they were found at fault,
owing to a flock of sheep and a herd of cattle having foiled the
land. A six-mile point had been done under the hour. The line
now led on to Collon, but coldly.

On the 5th they were at Balbriggan station, and had a ring by
the Naul from Knockbrack — twenty-two minutes, and a good line.
A second fox was found in Harbourstown, who made two rings,
the second a wide one ; when forced out again he crossed Snow-
town Hill, and, leaving the Naul to the left, entered Westown.
Here Mr. Filgate stopped them, with a beaten fox in front of
them, as a train had to be caught. They had hunted continuously
for one hour and fifteen minutes, and deserved their prey.

The almost imperceptibly lengthening days, even if we dis-
regarded dates, warn us that the pastime of princes must ere many
weeks give way to the popular pastime of steeplechasing. Already
busy caterers and entrepreneurs are framing programmes and
bidding high for favour with trainers and the public. Punchestown
is a sort of Areopagus among the minor assemblies it regulates ;
it controls, it gives a tone and colouring to the others so far as it
is possible ; and Punchestown this year presents a revised and
altered programme to a certain extent. Among the on dits about
its attractions is a projected sweepstakes for real bond fide hunt
horses that have been owned and worked since January ist, 1877.
The idea is novel — decidedly attractive ; but the winner would in
all probability turn up in some highly bred weed with jumping and
galloping power, but such as most masters of hounds would rather
see in any other stable than their own. A first-class hunt-horse
would rarely prove the winner of a chase unless in an extra large
or intricate country, and after winning he would probably take six
or eight months to get back into true huntsman's form in Ireland.

Second to Punchestown, and of totally different character from
the majority of Irish race meetings (and by this difference I do
not insinuate dispraise), conies the Fairy House meeting, with its
genuine intelligible programme and heavy weight of metal. No

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 207

country that I know of owes more to the occupiers of the soil
than the Ward Union territory ; no country is more empresse to
acknowledge the obligation, and where possible to repay it — ecce
signum f A race of ^120 is annually given by this hunt for the
farmers of the district, and, in addition, they are eligible to com-
pete for two other races, value about £200. Just now a meeting
of farmers has been invited to attend to arrange the conditions of
their own competition at the approaching Fairy House gathering,
and a popular and filling article may be consequently anticipated.

On Wednesday, the loth instant, the loyal, the brave, but above
all the curious, rendezvoused at every coign of vantage and bay
window that could command a good view of his Excellency the
Lord-Lieutenanf s processional entrance into the metropolis of his
new viceroyalty. The pomp, the pride, and circumstance of war
require flashing suns and bright skies to illustrate their best parade
features aright ; lurid skies, choked with vapour or fog, throw their
gloom over the brightest conceptions and the most effective
details. So the entrance was not magnificent, though the arrange-
ments were well made and dovetailed admirably. The sword
which, in the archaic words of the Liturgy, her Majesty the Queen
had committed into her servant's hands, was not en evidence. His
Grace the Duke of Marlborough comes to us in the era of flood,
storm, and deluge ! Is he destined to be " the dove of peace and
promise to our ark," the sword to be exchanged at last for the
olive branch?

The day was further noteworthy in that the Ward Union men
resumed hunting on that date, and had three or four miles at
capital pace from Ballyhack, by Harborstown, Ballymacoll, and
Priestown, before the deer took to the road near Hollywood Rath.
The rivers in this county are anything but down to their natural
level, the whole Tolka Valley being partially submerged. Mr.
George Brook's harriers had a capital afternoon round Laragh
Brien, finding game almost too plentiful ; while Meath was sipping
what I may, without any sinister punning meaning, call "the

208 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A,

cream of the valley " about Dunshaughlin, On Tuesday the
Kildare hounds had a long and eventful day in the neighbourhood
of Blessington, which was their meeting-place. Finding, as usual,
in the Downshire Park, the hounds raced their fox at top speed
across Glen Ding, the Naas road, and Slie Rhue, till he came to
the well-known ravine overlooking Elverstown ; up to this point,
I hear, the pace was so good that the tail hounds never decreased
their distance from the leaders, though straining after them.
Here, if report be true, the hounds were hurried a bit, and a pause
of some very precious moments was the consequence. From this
point pursuit became "potter;" but the pack worked on admir-
ably, following their fox, first towards Eadestown, then right over
Athgarrett Hill, thence by the edge of the old Punch Bowl Covert,
towards Three Castles, where he tried some earths ; then back by
Mr. Dunne's lands, in a winding line towards Gouchers ; then one
hears of a sheep-dog intervening, and the fox is finally lost by
Castle Inch, near Coolmine. An extremely long hunting run,
most interesting to the hound men, not exciting enough for the
hard riders; but they too had their turn presently, for a second fox,
found in one of the Tinode Ravines, ran the glen right through to
the Gate Lodge, crossed the Blessington road, and, picking a
capital path for himself and his followers through the heavy pas-
tures on the far side, held on to within a field of Three Castles
Covert. Then he turned back by Mr. Boothman's house, ran
across the dividing hill to Punchestown (not the race track), swept
over the large fields under Kieel, and won his way back ultimately
to Tinode, when the hounds were stopped at 4.45, after a very fast
fifty-five minutes, of which only half-a-dozen saw the last stage.
A distribution of the falls among the original morning field would
give a fair average, as the hard men got not a few repetitions, and
not many who rode at all escaped. Will any hunting M.P. in
Ireland be bold enough to propose that a brace of colley dogs
shall be restricted (save under larger licence) to sheep owners and
their herds. They are deadly to game, and they constantly mar

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 209

a stag or fox-hunt at a critical time. I see by a recent decision
that to keep a greyhound lawfully you must own ^1000. Can we
believe that the Sunday poachers and other greyhound and lurcher
owners of that calibre are good for a " thou " each ?

Black sheep will always infest a large fold, but it is pleasant
to see brilliant instances of their repudiation by the white-woolled
flock. Lord Huntingdon recently lost some hounds by poison.
His country at once subscribed the most tempting sums to lead
to conviction, and have thus one and all assoiled themselves of
the shame.

" The west wind sighs," says the bard. I should like to
have put the said bard on a hunter, with orders not to jog
more than six or seven miles, an hour, and to ride westwards
on Friday morning, from, let us say, Dunboyne station to
Larracor, some fourteen or fifteen miles, and then ask him
what he thinks of the appositeness of his verse. To me the
sighs seemed to come from an iceberg, which, peradventure, the
Arctic expedition had detached from the frozen continent, to
wander till dissolution in the warm Gulf Stream ! The night had
been rainy, and there were signs and tokens of more water all
round and in front of me on the road ; but the day itself was
bright and clear, the sky was high, and the sun radiant. By
the time we reached Dangan Castle the road began to fill with
men, horses, and carriages, and there were signs and tokens
of a very large gathering at Larracor ; for, teste the great dean
himself (Swift), fox-hunting was more popular in Pagan Meath
than were his homilies a few generations ago ; but what is this ?
The tide which had set for Larracor has turned now for Summerhill.
In a moment or two the terribly sad and stunning cause is learnt
by all— "Sam Reynell" died suddenly yesterday! The first
whip, J. Bishop— an ellve of his, and a credit to him — has been
sent by Mr. Waller to say that there can be no hunting to-day ;
and, indeed, I fear the Meath hunting annals will feel a break
now for some davs.

210 HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A.

It seems but a day or two ago that Mr. Reynell was among
us at Rahinstown (how well I recollect his kindness on that
occasion in asking me to his house for two meets not easily
accessible to me !) full of health and spirits ! His biography
in a recent " Baily " tells something of what he did for fox-hunting
in the two Meaths ; nobody can tell "how much he did. Almost
every spare energy and thought of an active mind was for
years bent on the work he had undertaken; and he did it
thoroughly. It may be said he was a slave to his idea —
most successful men are. It may be cavilled that it carried
him occasionally beyond the modern suaviter in modo, when
fox or hound was concerned. He WAS an enthusiast certainly,
and Talleyrand's surf out pas trop de ztle was entirely lost on him.
In him we may well paraphrase the lines :

" My heart leaps up whene'er I hear
The fox-hounds' tuneful cry ;
So was it when I was a boy,
So let it be when I am old,
Or let me die."

I am well assured his love never abated.

It was my fortune on returning from my sad and ineffectual
ride to meet Mr. George Brook's harriers at work with a hare
between Hamwood and Ballymacoll. They then went to Offalis,
found an extremely straight runner, and had a very sharp gallop
at top speed towards Ballymaglasson, and then in the direction of
"the Hatchet," when the venerable night stopped proceedings.
The hare selected a perfect bit of vale, intersected by widish
singles for the most part, and ran more direct as if for a point
than any hare I have seen for some time.

Dangan Bridge is one of Lord Waterford's most successful
meeting-places. On the 5th, his hounds were there, and finding
their first fox at Knockbrack, ran him very fast to Liskertin,
apparently for Brownstown Wood. A slight check here occurs,
but Duke soon sets the pack going under Tallagher village, in

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 211

the direction of Woodstock. Another check here, and wrong
information and then cold hunting, but not till a six-mile point
had been done in thirty-six minutes over a fine, wild, sporting
country. The master saw it all well. Dirty coats were not
uncommon after it. On Monday, the 8th, this pack met at
Churchtown, and after some woodland hunting, drew Rathgor-
mack Gorse, a good sure holder. Its fox broke for Ballyneale,
but was headed and turned leftwards to the verge of Coolnamuck
Wood, when he was met by a rustic, and a check was the result
(the three miles up to this had been got over in fifteen minutes).
Duke then cast " the ladies " to the right, when they hit it
off, and, crossing the Dungarvan road, sent their fox into Carrick
Wood, three miles further on, hustling him through its length,
past Mount Bottom, over the high park wall, into Curraghmore
Chase (it bounds some 6000 Irish acres) ; through the Tower
Hill plantations, without pause or dwell, into Carraboluclea Wood,
forced him over the wall again towards Carrick Wood, and rolled
him over at Tinhalla, after some fifteen miles had been covered in
two hours fifteen minutes.

Thursday, the 4th, in Kildare was not remarkable, save to a
good many people for the long distances they had to travel for
a modicum of sport. Bolton Hill was the meeting-place, Hobarts-
town the first successful covert. Here two foxes were on foot,
of which the dog-pack selected their own quarry, sending him
to Kilkea, where he hung for some time. Thence he was hustled
along into the Carlow country, and ultimately sent to Kilkea
Hill. An afternoon fox, found at Spratstown Gorse, ran by Matt
Conran's Covert, towards the bottom lands, under Ballintaggart.
A fresh fox and a holloa spoilt, I hear, a promising run.

Here is a sample of some of the sport which Mr. Burton
Persse has been showing in Galway. I can only give it in epitome.
On the 4th, his pack met at Blindwell, where they did not find,
but a good fox broke at once from Castle Grove for Sylvane ; then,
changing his point, ran through Ironpool by Milford and Cloghan,

212 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

through Milbourne on to a large head of earths near Bellemount ;
but his strength failed him, and after one hour and twenty minutes
he was pulled down by the " Burnt House." This was on the
Tuam side of Mr. Persse's country. On the 8th, they were
on the Loughrea side, at Eastwell, Lord Delvin's residence, and
ran two foxes to ground, the pack dividing. Carra Gorse was
equal to its fame to-day, and a stout-hearted fox left it, apparently
for Ballydugan ; but a bend to the left brings him close to
Hollyfield Gorse, thence over the magnificent pastures of Kil-
cooly, on towards Limehill and Streamstown, by Grange Covert,
just eluding his death grip in a cave by Springvale. The line
was light riding grass (comparatively), the pace something short
of flying for thirty-five minutes. On the evening of the gth
came the Hunt Ball, when Liddell's band did the music vice
the Moyode choir, and " the field " consisted of well-nigh 300.
On the nth, meeting at the Knockbrack, in the Athenry country,
they found in a small gorse near Belleville and killed, after a
twenty minutes' race into Athenry, by the verge of the town.
From Goodbody's Covert they had a good forty-five minutes
to ground. On the i2th, they met at the Oranmore station,
and, finding in Kiltrogar (a covert planted and presented to
the hunt by the late Lord Clanmorris), hunted a bold fox who
held his point in the teeth of the wind till a Board of Works
canal in full flood was reached. The fox had crossed it ; the
hounds dashed in after, but were borne down ever so far by
the current. The field had to go round for a bridge, but by
good luck and hard riding came up with the pack as they were
leaving Mr. Meldon's farm. From here they push on their fox
through Castle Lambert, through Mr. Goodbody's farm, where
he tried the earths, over the Tuam rails towards Grayin Abbey,
within two fields of which he was rolled over. From find to
kill measures a ten-mile point, the distance traversed probably
nearly fifteen. Every hound took part in the worry, and the time
of the chase was one hour thirty-five minutes.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 213

XV.

"Could we his bygone pages read,

His feats by flood and field ;
The varied narrative, indeed,
An Iliad might yield."

Ballinglough burst— Culmullen chase— The Black Bull— The Grange.

WHAT has been will be, and the procession of the seasons and
their phenomena continue their miraculous course, which we
mortals of many lustrums get so used to that we talk of the
course of nature and the order of things ! January is only
repeating itself this year, and the chances are that many hundreds
of years ago the farmers of the fertile Milanese were wont to
complain of the flooded fields and the incursions of the Po and
his tributaries every January, just as we have been inveighing
against this two-faced month for its burden of waters and unre-
mitting downpour in 1877. I see by an old Roman calendar that
Cancer sets, and in the middle of this month Aquarius and his
hose come into play :

"Irrorat Aquarius annum."

Of course the earlier commencement of the season of ks grandes
eau-x is due to our faster times ; for it would indeed be hard if
an age of progress only landed us a few days ahead of those old
Pagans !

2i4 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Marie gravis ! A week since, we were listening to wars and
rumours of wars, and men's hearts were failing them for the things
coming on the East. Now the war cloud seems passing away,
and the image of war once more engrosses soldiers and sailors,
statesmen and squires, in its vortex. " Leaves " seem to be less
dubious now ; men appear to be buying horses, with somewhat
more confidence, "to finish the season" withal — for, disguise it
from our minds and memories as we may, half the season has
already flitted away into the past. The better half, according to
popular estimation, " remains to be crowned by us yet." Longer
days, lighter land, sharper foxes, horses more experienced and
in better condition, fences fairer, men harder, hunt servants
quicker, the whole machinery in better working trim — these are
a few of the blessings which the second season is supposed to
bring in its train. Let us, now that it is a retrospect, be just to
the three months' hunting which we have enjoyed in Ireland. If
the ground was adamantine in early October, it has been soft
enough for the screws and navicularly affected ever since. Frost
has kept away, having frightened us by a brief interlude which
merely impeded the hunting current for a few hours. Scent, since
the land got well soaked, has been marvellously good. Sport has
been keeping pace with it, and the supply of foxes has been so
good that I hazard a statement that there have not been five
blank days — certainly not more — in all Ireland up to the present
date (mid-January). Abnormal rainstorms certainly did spoil
sport for a day or two ; but even in the worst day of the storm
period one or two packs made capital weather of it, and had fine
continuous pursuits. The Ward Union hounds suffered most
from the rain and its effects. But their basin is subject to these
visitations almost annually; nor were they totally exempt last
year, their country being under the flood ban for a week, if I
mistake not, at the commencement of the season.

I concluded my last letter with the melancholy tidings of
" Sam " Reynell's death. I must now go back to the very Thurs-

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 215

day of his seizure, when the Meath hounds had met at Drews-
town, and had just found their second fox in Ballinlough, and
taken him backwards and forwards between that place (Sir Charles
Nugent's) and Killua Castle, Sir B. Chapman's park. The pack
were streaming after their fox out of Ballinlough when the news
of Mr. Reynell's death reached Mr. Waller. He at once ordered
Goodall to stop the hounds ; but they were racing, and Mrs.
Partington's celebrated broom was of about as much avail to
keep out a rising tide. Something about a score, I hear, got off
with them, and all went merry as a marriage-bell till a boggy-
banked river barred progress. Mr. Dunville gave them a good
lead, but somehow Goodall and Captain P. Lowe alone profited by
it, and they had the satisfaction of being nearly the sole pursuers
over a fine sound line of country, which bore very little trace of
the recent downpour, and which hounds have not been known to
run over for a very long time. The fox pointed first for Cauces-
town, then beat to the right and made Cloghbrack, where he got
to ground — forty-three minutes, without pause or dwell to enable
Goodall and his small field to stop the flying pack. Strangely
enough, I learnt that a small strip of wood, through the length
of which they ran, did not detain them a second, for scent lay
there as well as on the turf. I alluded to the circumstance of
my having met Mr. Brook's harriers on my return from Larracor,
and enjoying a very fast gallop with them. A Kildare pursuer
fell in for even a better thing (longer, at least) with the Newbridge
harriers, who took a hare, or possibly an outlying fox, over the
line of the old Kildare Red-coat course, by Kilteel, round by
Rathmore, into Furniss, till, I hear, the hounds got rid of their
field.

Saturday, the i3th, the Kildare hounds repeated their own
history by meeting at Hazelhatch station, on the Great Southern
and Western line of rails. There had been a severe frost during
the night, and by nine o'clock a thick enamel covered everything,
and made even the low-lying pastures feel very hard to the tread,

216 HIBERN2A VENA TIC A.

and the spots poached by cattle almost unridable. Very soon,
however, came an hour's rain, and dispersed and dissolved all
the congelations of the night The meet was a very large one,
though Meath was almost wholly unrepresented, and the Ward
Union men did not muster a dozen strong altogether ; Mr. Adair
was there from the Queen's County, Lord Oranmore from Galway
(both admirably mounted apparently) ; General Herbert, as senior
officer, commanded a miniature army recruited from the Dublin
Garrison, the Curragh, and Newbridge, consisting of a very large
squadron of Inniskillings, some half-a-dozen or more of the Rifle
Brigade, a few of the yth Dragoons, a guardsman or two, and men
of the 75* and 4th Foot. Captain J. M'Calmont, long an
absentee from the plains of Kildare, reappeared there to-day, and,
with Colonel Frank Forster, represented the new Household.
Winding through the streets of Celbridge, Mr. Mansfield led his
knights-pursuers into Castletown Park, where a fox was very soon
on foot. His career was brief, as he saved himself — to run, we'll
trust, further on a future day — in a gaping sewer. Cullen's Gorse
had been so frequently appealed to of late that this, " the last
appeal," proved wholly inefficacious, and the good stout fox who
had done his duty by Kildare right foxfully knew it not to-day.
Taghadoe, another gorse which has been very useful this year, was
tenantless; so I may repeat my paraphrase of the Laureate's,
" Bad luck to the country ! the clock had struck one ; no foxes
forthcoming — no hunting begun ! " For of the Castletown rat
we need not take any account till he prove more worthy of a
niche in fox history. Courtown furnished the esurients with much
much refreshment, solid and liquid, some jumping, but no fox.
Remains Ballycaghan ; but at this stage much desertion took
place, the distances beginning to tell on the comers from afar, and
those dependent on trains and time-tables. A quick find in
Ballycaghan Gorse, very little covert hustling, and away the good
fox speeds, for Cappagh apparently — two miles over grass — as
hard as horses can gallop. Three or four of the wide pastures in

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 217

this direction, however, had not been crossed before our fox began
to bend to the left, as if Hortlands were his object ; Newtown
village is left on the right hand, and now, by the edge of the road
leading to it, a check occurs. " Volatile " leads her sisterhood
over the road into beautiful green fields ; but the clue has been
mainly lost, and, though we got a very enjoyable canter over a
mile or two of old turf, intersected by three or four wide fences,
and one a bank and deep drop — which caused some grief, but
immense amusement and peals of laughter— nothing came of
Freeman's rapid casts in the Hortland direction ; and on visiting
Cappagh Gorse, as the westering sun was lighting up the whole
horizon with brilliancy, it was only to find a fox one moment, and
presently to hear " who-whoop ! who-whoop ! " in the covert — why
I know not. Gone to ground ! A poor day's sport ; but those
who hold that larking over splendid old pasture lands and fair
fences is better than a gallop over plough and plough obstacles,
had enough to content their aspirations to-day.

I alluded in my last letter to the fine gallop which the Meath
hounds had from Gibstown to Dunmoe, when five alone filled the
ranks of persevering pursuit. The line led through Randlestown,
over Syllogue Hill, and here it was that a huge boundary fence
weeded out the field. By all accounts it was a very brilliant
thirty-five minutes, interrupted but by a single pause of very short
duration in Craig's Covert Gibstown is a very hard place to
get away from, and often involves a long weary round. " Sam "
Reynell's death has dislocated all plans and arrangements in
royal Meath — now verily and truly mcerens Meath. The hunt
ball, which was to have taken place on Wednesday, is postponed
indefinitely. Westmeath put off her meet at Gillardstown on
Friday ; the Allenstown harriers theirs at Drumcree. There will
be no hunting, save stag-hunting, on this side of the country (by
which I mean Dublin and Meath) till after Mr. Reynell's funeral
to-morrow (Tuesday). Every one is going there to pay the tribute
of a sportsman to the remains of a very great one, and till then
pendent opera interrupta.

2i8 HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A.

In Kildare Monday's meet at Eagle Hill has been put off
in consequence of the death of the Hon. Mrs. Borrowes, the wife
of Major Borrowes, of Gilltown, one of Kildare's most holding
coverts. Major Borrowes was for some seasons the master of the
Cottesmore hounds.

En revanche for these postponements, interruptions, and their
sad causes, the Ward Union hounds, released from their durance
of ten days or a fortnight, have had two glorious pursuits con-
secutively. Of the first (Saturday's) I can only repeat what I
hear, that everything combined to make it a splendid pursuit, as
there is an interval of somewhere about fifteen miles between the
point of enlargement and the point of capture by Beau Pare on
the Boyne. Of the second I can speak ex cathedrd, though the
cathedra was that of a very distant spectator and follower over
a portion of the line — but I anticipate events. Let me begin
with the painful lesson in punctuality which, much and sorely
needed, I learnt in the forenoon. Having great faith in a big
stable clock and a fast stepper, I drove to Maynooth station to
catch the morning train from Mullingar. It was vanishing as
I drove up. A bad beginning ; but there is ample consolation —
the Ward Union hounds are at Culmullen cross roads at 1.15 p.m.
You can easily reach that place in time, says the soothing spirit
to the irritated inward man. Too true ! but, as a matter of fact,
I did not, and the hounds and deer and their followers were a
mile off, when I should have been in the ranks of pursuit, or
stragglers, at any rate. The whereabouts of the line was marked
by spectators on every little eminence, so, pushing along, we got
alongside of the worst-beaten division presently; but a mile of
good firm road gave the leaders such a second start that to catch
them or the pack was quite beyond my power, though, to verify
the line, I followed the tracks over a very pleasant bit of country.
The morning was intensely cold and rimy ; ice sheeted over the
pools, but by nine o'clock rain began to fall with that gushing
persistency which no longer surprises us, and till three o'clock

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 219

continued with hardly a moment's pause. The field at Culmullen
cross-roads was not large by any means, though recruited from
Meath by Lord Langford, Captain P. Lowe, Mr. Chadwick, Mr.
Murphy, and a few more, while the Dublin Garrison also aided
to fill the ranks, principally with men from the 3rd Dragoon
Guards. Culmullen itself is on rather high ground, while stretch-
ing away below to the eastward is a fine valley, through which the
Meath line runs it single rail. The enlargement took place near
a new church in process of erection, and the deer, jumping a
somewhat impracticable wall, put her mounted pursuers at rather
a disadvantage to begin with. There is a driving wind from the
south-west, and the deer goes away straight for Batterstown — not
quite in the teeth, but about what sailors would call close-hauled.
It is a heavy, swampy line of pasture for about two Irish miles
between Culmullen and Batterstown. This was the deer's course,
and, as scent was very warm, no wonder a good many horses had
little left at the end of this stage. It did not, however, quite
reach to Batterstown, but, turning at Piper Hill, led on towards
"the Hatchet;" and here a good hard road helped horses for a bit
after the soppy, holding grass lands. Soon it bends to the left,
and, passing through Ballymaglasson, steers a tract between
Baytown and Vesington, crossing the by-road leading to Rath-
beggan at a small bridge ; thence it goes on to the verge of Wood
Park, over one or two very pleasant little brooks (if you are on
a water jumper), then it uses a lane for a few hundred yards, till,
crossing the Dunboyne road, Norman's Gorse is made, and in a
mile or so more donee (on the high road to the metropolis) is
reached. Thence the line diverges on to Cruice Rath (the home
of a very popular sportsman, Mr. Maxwell, now, alas ! in small
health, whose liberality has made his harriers les bienvenus in any
country in any weather), and here the capture was made. Take
a compass and measure the points of this gallop on the Ordnance
Survey map. Few packs in a cycle of seasons can boast a
straighter, longer, or better line, though the latter part was rather
spoilt by roads.

220 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

A circular bids me attend a meeting of the Kildare Hunt
Club at Naas on the 22nd. The subjects to be considered there
are : First, the future mastership ; secondly, the separation of the
management of the country from the mastership of the hounds —
"country" standing generally for fowl damage, covert expenses,
and compensation claims of various characters. As to the master-
ship, if Kildare's sons decline the honourable but responsible and
onerous office, it appears to me that the panacea for the wants of
a sporting age, The Field and its contemporaries' advertising
columns, must be resorted to. There are not a few enterprising
men of good means, position, and leisure in England and Scot-
land who would gladly welcome such an opportunity. Liberal
subscriptions and a grass country; pleasant society and good
houses ; Dublin within an hour, London within less than a dozen ;
an army of all arms cantoned close by, to protect and enliven ;
racing within easy reach, and " lep racing all round your
quarters, wherever you may make them ; good farmers, most loyal
to fox-hunting, and land that rides light and does not overtax
hunters — such are a few of the good things which Kildare men
perhaps value less than outsiders, because they have grown up
among them, and familiarity has dulled the keenness of appetite.
Add to all this that there never was a time, perhaps, when the
undertaking of the management of this pack involved less outlay
or personal trouble. New kennels (most healthy they have
proved) have been built centrally, to command the country by
road and rail. The chain of coverts is perfect in every link, and
the stock of foxes is very good. Of the hounds it were superfluous
to say much ; I do not think even a very fastidious master could
find much to cavil at in looks or performance. Such as they are,
they are ready to hand, and thus one main source of anxiety and
expense to a new M.F.H. is saved. I believe there is a prejudice
against the introduction of a " stranger " as master in some minds.
There are many obvious reasons in favour of new blood, if of the
right strain ; not many cogent ones, to my fancy, against it. Such

HI BERN I A VENA TIC A. 221

a trust would not be delegated lightly or inconsiderately by a
country ; and, as in leases, there would of course be strict clauses,
covenants, and conditions. The power of the purse is a strong
curb to any M.F.H. ; and it would be the committee's fault if any
serious or lasting injury were done to either country or pack, sup-
posing the almost inconceivable notion that the "stranger" were
either grossly ignorant, prejudiced, or malevolent. A colonel from
another corps will be just as likely to do justice to a cavalry
regiment as a regimental promotion.

On Tuesday, the Meath hounds would have been due at
Ratoath but for the death of the great master spirit departed, to
whose obsequies I know a vast number of the aristoi in the world
of hunting, and also in the social world, are hurrying to-day irre-
spective of business or pleasure — Quorn meets, Tailby meets, or
Kildare fixtures — all anxious to pay a last tribute to what I may
call a past master of his craft, who for more than a generation
wore the crown of royal Meath, a king of its royal sport. Ratoath
is the portal to so much fine country on all sides, that for the sake
of my readers I regret that my surveys did not embrace some
scenes in that neighbourhood. The alternative was Johnstown
Inn in Kildare, sure to attract a large assemblage, which in point
of fact was the starting-place from whence, after some hours, we
got a capital and most enjoyable run — of that more presently —
but which I could not compare to Ratoath in point of the great
hunting unities, that, with luck and good handling, lead to a great
epic in action. As I drove thither betimes, I met the Earl of
Clonmell posting on to be in time for the sad funeral procession,
abandoning a fashionable meet close to his home to fulfil the dic-
tates of friendship and kindliness of heart. Well, is it not written
that sometimes a visit to a house of mourning is better than to a
house of feasting? I forget the words, but the idea is somewhat
cast in that mould. A gusty morning, and very dark. The rain-
fall (our almost d.iily portion) was only kept off by the wind, and
so soon as that lulled was bound to descend in torrents. The

222 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

village of Johnstown was full, very full, of hunting visitors — I
might almost say guests ; for are we not bidden by Mr. Mansfield
to a grand spectacle and great games ? There were not quite so
many as at the opening festival in October — not near so much
carriage pomp or bravery of apparel — and yet the meet was very
fashionably attended. Half a score of ladies, if not a whole
score, riding — nay, I am not sure now, if there were not even
more ; a good many driving ; while the Marquis and Marchioness
of Drogheda surveyed the peripheries of the day from one of
Comerford's famous hack cars, sure to be well driven and well
horsed. There were very few Meath men, pour cause ; but Mr.
and Mrs. Adair were there from the Queen's County, while Dublin
Garrison and Dublin city were strongly represented — the former
by Captains Ward Bennett, O'Neal, Bloomfield, Peareth, and
other Inniskillings ; by Messrs. Stewart, Wardrop, Hartigan, and
others of the 3rd Dragoon Guards ; also by Captains Bagot, Sawle,
Crosbie, Hon. T. Scott, etc. ; Dublin city by Messrs. Robertson,
D'Arcy, Burke, and others. The Curragh and Newbridge sent
detachments from the R.H.A., among them Messrs. Costobadie,
Knox, and MacDonald; from the yth Dragoons, headed by Major
Dent, well mounted as usual ; from the 4th Foot, and, I think,
the 75th of the Line, etc. The half-crown business transacted,
the chariots and horsemen, according to time-honoured custom,
entered the gates of Kerdiffstown, had a pleasant drive through
its avenue and park, and the usual marshalling took place in the
large field opposite the usually good holding gorse that Mr. Hen-
drick watches over so vigilantly and well. Great expectations and
suspense for a quarter of an hour ! Then the trumpet blasts make
us turn our horses' heads round. We are soon in the neighbour-
ing park of Palmerstown, but no foxes roam its plantations to-
day ! Then we begin to ascend a mild gradient till we are once
more enacting the part of vedettes, while the hounds explore the
greeneries of Arthurstown below us — formerly the pride and boast
of Kildare, now much fallen from its high estate. This is getting

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 223

really serious when luck deserts us in the odd number. Remains
Eadestown the never-failing ! Nor was the proud nuncupation a
misnomer. In ten minutes or less the two narrow gates at either
corner are crowded — those near either get about a small field's
start of those worse posted — and the hounds are racing ! A few
small obstacles — a dozen fields of rather poor grass land, and
none the heavier, or scarcely the heavier or more holding, from
the recent rains — and we are entering the well-known Punches-
town arena ; only we are reversing the track, and running left-
handed instead of right — up the hill towards the stand, instead of
down past it In a minute or two we are on the edge of the
almost equally famous Punchestown Gorse, and those who have
got away fairly well from Eadestown can look back upon the tail
men cantering and galloping up. Here is a gentleman whose
lines are cast in the law courts of Dublin. A flight of high and
stiff hurdles is in front of his path ; he charges them right
gallantly ; but whether his horse swerved or jumped extra big, the
rider is supine on the right side, and, as somebody quaintly
observed, his head executed a deed poll on the ground, his corpus
an indenture. The said gentleman I saw afterwards charging the
biggest obstacles to be met with, as if a fall were merely a stimulus
to his enterprise. "Hold up!" says a gallant Saxon, evidently
a soldier, to his hunter, as he gets on to the top of a bank. The
horse evidently does not understand the injunction ; for he plunges
incontinent into the ditch (luckily, a dry one), and it taxes his
rider's hand, seat, and nerve severely to save a fall. A loose horse
or two may be seen about, I believe ; but scent is very good, and
the half-hour's respite, or at least a quarter's, which most foxes on
most days can, with, perhaps, one or two followers, count on in
this strong thick gorse, is to-day cut down to seven or eight
minutes. Away we go, past the grand stand, over the old
" Downshire course wall " (a three-foot gap, be it understood, pre-
sents itself in the middle), across the Rathmore road, as if for
Cradoxtown or Tipper, then a swing to the left leads us over

224 HIBERN1A YEN ATI C A.

another road from Naas to Punchestown, while a few light-riding
grass fields and scrambling banks bring us into Killashee, Mr.
Richard Moore's park, over which the hounds run fast ; then we
cross the Naas and Dunlavin road, enter Mr. Kearney's extensive
fields at Rathasker — where there used to be a breeding earth by
the old castle, I believe — run over some rather swampy fields,
where a boundary double makes a call on a tired horse's powers ;
and presently, having got over a by-road, we are in Mr. Fay's
farm, and we hear who-whoop ! who-whoop ! at a bank and ditch
where I have seen a fox take sanctuary before to-day. At this
point, being well-nigh twenty miles from my stable, I turned
homewards, thinking all was over, when, looking back, I saw men
riding again ! so the fox must have only tried this sewer or drain.
Slowly, but without much hesitation, the hounds now hunt on to
Newlands, Mr. FitzPatrick's residence, and by his farm-yard there
is a pause of a few minutes, which the owner begs the large field
to utilize in tasting his hospitality ; but the break is only momen-
tary— away the hounds hurry on towards Herbertstown.

The Ward Union hounds continue their unchequered career of
brilliant sport. The meeting-place on Wednesday, the i7th, was
the Black Bull (stat nominis umbra}, and in addition to the faces
one generally sees at these assemblies there was a small knot of
hard-riding Meath men, whose occupation, so far as fox-hunting is
concerned, is gone till Friday next. Among them were Lord
Langford, Mr. W. Butler, the Messrs. Murphy, Mr. Trotter, Mr.
Chapman, Mr. Metge, Captain Peter Lowe, Mr. Hone, Mr.
M'Gerr ; Kildare supplied a few, representatives, Louth one or two,
Limerick the same. There was a coach-load of Inniskillings and
3rd Dragoon Guards, one or two of the Rifle Brigade, and Dublin
mustered strong to a very favourite and accessible fixture, some
ten miles of Irish measurement from the General Post-Office. The
deer selected for this pursuit was rather a celebrity, as this year
he gave about the longest chase of the season, which ended at
Garradice, and hopes were high that the gallop of this afternoon

STEWART DUCKETT.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 225

would be in no way inferior. In length it was very inferior, but
the pace for a few miles was very good and continuous ; but
I anticipate. The red deer was unlucky at the outset, for, en-
larged not far from the meeting-place, he was coursed for some
fields by a sheep-dog, and this no doubt spoilt the first stage of
our gallop — for in the first mile we had a long check ; then
crossing the Dunboyne road, we got jammed and entangled in
a sort of network or prison of rails, wire, and water, which took
up a few moments, and might have been fatal to seeing anything
further of the pursuit. But up to this our quarry took things very
leisurely, going down by Wood Park and its brook ; then turning
to the left, recrossing the Dunboyne road, and presently holding
a course over the Ratoath road by Loughlinstown, Mullinam, and
Ballyhack, it led us over a very perfect grass line, widely fenced,
but where, with a very few exceptions, you could clap on steam at
every obstacle, and never think of the safety-valve. Inclining to
the right, the track takes us to the well-known Kilrue cross-roads,
a very celebrated meet for this pack, and thence by Beltrasna to
a point in the Ashbourne road, soon after which the road was
substituted for the pastures, and a capture was effected beyond
Fleenstown. The cream of the gallop was, I should think, about
five miles over a line nearly good enough for any modern steeple-
chase, very superior to many courses patronized a generation or
two gone by. There were falls and loose horses, but no bones
broken or horses injured, and the half-hour or forty minutes occu-
pied by the brightest portion of the chase was deliciously warm,
the sun shining out radiant and serene after some very heavy
forenoon showers. A very hard welter-weight owed an involuntary
cold bath to some concealed wire, which turned his hunter over
into a brook. The invisible wire is so rare in this country that
I mention the circumstance. A pillar of the Irish turf became
for the nonce a pillar of Irish mud, while his place in the alpha-
bet of pursuit, generally nigh Alpha, waxed by this misadventure
nigher to Omega. We make a vast pother about our rains and

Q

226 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

floods here ; but really what are ours in comparison to your
experiences in the Thames and other valleys ? Yesterday the
nephew of an old friend, who held the horn once in England, told
me that his uncle was recently asked to go to a ball, and when
his station was reached and the brougham was expected, lo, a
boat and a ferryman were sent to bring him to his destination !

Mr. Hamilton Stubber is, I hear, showing very fine sport in the
Queen's County, one sample of which I sent you in the merest
outline last week. A pursuer who graduated with Mr. Tailby,
told me that on Monday last he had a wonderfully pleasant gallop
with this pack, which showed very high hunting form. I am not
quite certain about the accuracy of my memory, but I give
a sketch of the pursuit, subject to any amount of correction.
Finding at Orchard Gorse, they hunted their fox to a sewer near
Luggnacurran village. Whether the fox emerged from his hiding-
place when the hounds were taken away is not ascertained, but
soon the hounds dragged on a line into Corbally Covert, and from
it sent a fox over a range of hills flat at the top and covered with
short grass, where there is a long-stretching gallop of nearly three
miles, broken only by two flying walls, or walls that can be flown
in a horse's stride. After this the fox got into a thorn and hazel
scrub which clothes a hill known as The Banker, from which he was
pushed into a new plantation of Captain Cosby's, and when he
broke again it was to run over the Old Hill, gallop once more
its walls, and get to ground not far from his original starting-place;
from this he was bolted, and soon after rolled over by the pack,
who had deserved him well.

Thursday, the i8th, was marked by almost heavier rain than
we have been blessed with hitherto this year. As a matter of fact,
there was no hunting of fox, hare, or stag within a very wide
radius of the metropolis, and, if the evening corresponds to the
forenoon, hunting in such a diluvial downpour would be a very
mixed delight. I met a very weather and water-proof pursuer, who
told me he started for " The Grange " (Kildare hounds), but was

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 227

driven back by the gushing rain. The evening was tolerably fine,
and so warm and muggy that I should not be surprised to hear of
one or two brilliant hound passages and beaten fields.

The chronicle of hunting events would be incomplete were we
to pass over " Sam " Reynell's funeral sub silentio. Much of hunt-
ing Ireland found its way to the churchyard shade at Reynella, as
a glance at the following names will show : The Earls of Howth
and Clonmell, Lords Langford and Greville, the Hon. Charles
and Harry Bourke, Mr. Waller, the Hon. E. Preston, Lieut-
Colonel Eraser, V.C., Mr. J. L. Naper, Major Naper, Captain
Hartopp, Mr. Dunville, Captain P. Lowe, Captain J. M'Calmont,
Mr. Macdonald Moreton, Messrs. F. and M. Chapman, Mr. R.
Malone, Mr. Mervyn Pratt, Mr. Pepper, Mr. Rothwell, Mr. S.
Garnett, Captain Kearney. Major Donaldson. Some nine of the
above list have been masters of hounds. There were also a great
many of the peasantry present —

" His saltern accumulem donis et fungar inani
Munere."

The harrier interest has been very triumphant during the
last week or ten days. Besides Mr. G. Brook's and the New-
bridge pack that I alluded to, the Queen's Bays have had two
very good runs of an hour and an hour and a half from Garry-
roan, and earlier in the month I had a very meritorious perform-
ance by Mr. Carey Reeves's hare -hounds.

On Friday, the iQth, the Meath hounds recommenced hunting
at Philpotstown, in weather most hostile to sport. I hear the
show of foxes at Churchtown, Meadstown, and, in fact, passim,
was very good ; but their ways were ringing ways, and nothing
very decisive took place.

I hear the Curraghmore hounds had a very fast thirty-five
minutes from Lane Fox's Gorse on Tuesday last, ending in a kill.
The track was through Carriganard, Grace Dieu, and Firmon,
in the direction of Waterford.

228 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

On Friday, the i2th, the Kilkenny hounds were interrupted
in their career by Mr. Ponsonby Barker's death, but Colonel
Chaplin improvised a by-Saturday at Windgap, which brought a
good many hunting men together. Davis's Gorse furnished
a good fox, who ran by Marsh's Gorse, through Mr. Morris
Reade's plantations at Rossenarra, into Castle Morres, where
he was rolled over after a pleasant fifty minutes. On Monday,
the 1 5th, they were at the fifth mile-stone on the Dublin road, and
had a short gallop to ground at Gowran from Flagmount ; and
an evening run from Bishop's Lough, through Blanchardstown,
by the chapel of Pitt, into Clifden Bottoms, where the hounds were
stopped, owing to the approach of night.

On Thursday last the Kildare hounds were at the Grange
village. The morning was one that would have daunted even
an intrepid pursuer. The afternoon cleared, and the small party
who awaited the course of events were not disappointed, even
if they saw nothing very brilliant. Knockrigg Gorse, the first
venture, sent forth a good fox, who, selecting the drier side of
his grounds for breaking, ran by the Rath, and all but up to
the Parsonage, where he was headed back, and his new direction
was for Ballyhook, across the well-known and much-dreaded
bog drain of grimy notoriety. Here the hounds got a good
lead, for the field had to quest about for a crossing, which they
at last found; and presently came another flooded drain not
far from Ballynure, which only one or two managed to cross
successfully. The fox now brushes by Ballyhook Gorse on his
way to Saunder's Grove ; but bending to the right, as if he meant
to complete the circle, he saw an open drain or sewer in Griffins-
town, and into it he crept. By all accounts, this was a good
hounds' run ; the field had a stern chase. Matt Conran's Gorse
and Ballintaggart were non-holders to-day; but Hatfield the
inexhaustible provided a runner, who started off as if for Halvers-
town, then turned to the right, and made the Bowery (here the
field were compelled to trust to the Dunlavin road for the most

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 229

part, owing to the flooding of the swampy lands around) ran
through it, and worked his way to Logatrina, crossed the Naas
road, and was lost not far from Cryhelp. Pace latterly was not,
I hear, very good.

On Saturday, the Ward Union hounds were for the second
time flooded out of their country ; so they — or their followers
rather, to be precise — threw in their lot with the Kildare hounds,
who met at Rathcoole, some eight miles from Dublin. The
field was enormous ; the day was fine. Foxes proved con-
spicuously absent from sight or smell till near two o'clock, when
a Johnstown Kennedy fox (or a visitor, at any rate) started off at
top speed for the hills under which it nestles ; ran very nearly to
the Saggart reservoir ; and brushed past Gouchers, and ultimately
made Tinode, where he was rattled about for some time. A
fresh fox (as supposed) then started up before the pack, and led
them towards Kilteel, getting into a hole or burrow half a mile
or so from the Kilteel road.

Mr. Humphrey's stag-hounds also stopped hunting last week,
in tribute to Mr. Reynell's memory.

The Ward Union hounds had an exceptionally fine gallop on
Wednesday, the 24th inst, which began by Bay ton Park, and
progressed by Batterstown Parsonage, Blackball, " the Hatchet,"
Kilmore, Moynalvy, Culmullen, Warrenstown, till it finished
at Dunshaughlin village. I propose to write in my next letter
at length, and to notice, if space permits, the results of Monday's
meeting of the Kildare hunting senate as well. Roughly speaking
an M.F.H. who takes Kildare will have .£1500 or ^"1600 per
annum, a pack of hounds found, stables and kennels for his estab-
lishment, and his country kept.

230 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

XVI.

' What's that skirting the hill-side ?
'Tis the fox'! I'll bet a hundred ;
Forward, forward let us ride 1 "

Rathcoole rendezvous — Fine run from Johnstown Kennedy — Baytown.

THE outlook on Friday morning was on a semi-deluge and its
natural consequences. On Saturday the vis medicatrix natura,
to use the jargon of " the Faculty," had done wonders to dry up
the surface waters and harden the crust of the pulpy, water-sodden
earth. There had been a sharp frost during the night ; the
spiculae of ice were on the roads and all around, while a lambent
sun was glorifying everything with his bright far-reaching rays.
The Kildare hounds met at Rathcoole, a village neither clean,
comely, nor beautiful, but very ancient, which lies under the
shadow of the Dublin and Wicklow ranges of hills. To-day it
was glorious in colour, enlivened by the presence of several
hundred horsemen and horsewomen, soldiers' drags, flashing
sunlight, war horses innumerable, and all the pomp and pride and
circumstance of war's image. Here were the lords of the soil,
represented by the ducal and noble houses of Leinster, Clonmell,
Cloncurry, Oranmore, Harewood, and I know not how many
more. Here were the lords of no soil — lords of themselves, that
heritage of woe according to Byron, but of that heritage to-day
there were scant signs or tokens visible. Here were the lords of
many horses, but masters peradventure of none, and side by side

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 231

with them the owner (it is Saturday) of a quiet unpretending nag
horse, which somehow gets over and through a country, and does
an odd bit of harness and hacking perhaps in addition. Here
are good horse-masters and bad horse-masters, ladies riding, ladies
driving in cars, phaetons, waggonettes, and croydons. It is a
field day for garrison and staff, cavalry, artillery, and rifles ; but
no corps muster so strong as the Inniskillings, and no two majors
are more effectively mounted than Major Gore and Major Billing-
ton of that sporting regiment — Major Gore's weight-carrier being
a perfect picture of symmetrical strength ; while for performance
and handiness in crossing any sort of country with a steadying
load Major Dent's grey hunter is, perhaps, unrivalled. Galway,
Limerick, the Queen's County, Scotland, and a great many more
portions of her Majesty's dominions, are here doughtily
championed. It seems to every eye a day for best horses and
best clothes. The enforced rest has perhaps restored the bloom
on many an overdone hunter. The bright sun and clear air has
evoked the brightest of purple togas. Suffice it to say now that
it was a very bright, joyous scene, worthy the panegyric of the
laureate of the chase :

" When all around is gay — men, horses, dogs,
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health and universal joy."

The days are lengthening, and with them hunting licence ; so
I think it was considerably past eleven o'clock when we filed
down into a miry, flooded lane-way, whence leathers and cords
received many a slushy accolade. From this we emerge into
wide green fields which bound Castlebagot Gorse ; but, alas !
the trumpet sounds. There is no fox on the premises, nor yet
in the neighbouring shrubberies of Castlebagot House. I said
the crowd was enormous ; it contained a few perilous kickers — of
course there were some kickees. Between holes, an odd fence or
two, and such like causes, there was a small crop of disasters
before we had visited the third covert (Twelfth Lock Gorse).

23 2 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Alas ! no luck in odd numbers to-day ; it was empty, and foxless
likewise.

One of the sights of the forenoon which we encountered in
these progresses over the paths of Macadam was a large company
of young Levites, probably enjoying a holiday ramble from May-
nooth or some affiliated college, all wearing the biretta or black
cap, which I suppose here, as in the case of the judge passing
sentence, symbolises death to the world and its vanities. They
were a fine stalwart regiment of manly looking young fellows,
not much sicklied over with the pale cast of thought. If there
were any ritualists in our cortege, they must have been highly
edified by the ecclesiastical costume and hierophantic millinery.
Perhaps a few of us thought of old Oxford days, when " Jack
Adams, who coaches so well, set us down by the Royal Defiance
at the door of the Mitre Hotel," with the assurance that, arrived
at the steps of the Mitre, we were safe to get on in the Church ;
and when, to quote the same dear old supper-party ditty, known
and sung of all men on the banks of Isis, we " flashed our top-
boots in the slums." The next stage was a very long and dreary
one by the uneven banks of the canal, called Grand, on the lucus
principle, because no grandeur meets the eye along this dreary
waterway. I should think we trotted along it for nearly three
miles, perhaps more, till we came to a nice secluded bit of gorse
known as Miss Gould's Gorse, the townland on which it stands
being Lough town. There is a curious coincidence about this
gorse which it may not be out of place or impertinent to mention
here. Sir Edward Kennedy, the then master of the Kildare
hounds, saw that a gorse covert was very desirable in this locality ;
he applied to Miss Gould and her landlord, and was offered any
field he chose to select. Having made his choice, and sowed it,
the next step was to make an earth ; and, on his visiting the place
to make all the arrangements for the purpose, Sir Edward was
accosted by an old man, who asked for the post of earth-stopper,
urging that he had the best claim. " Why ?'^ said Sir Edward.

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 233

" Because I was earth-stopper in your father Sir John's time ; and
this was the old covert, and here is the old earth ! " It turned out
perfectly true, and Sir Edward had only to re-open the old fox-
haunt.

After very careful drawing, this place too was pronounced
blank; and the next venture, a small screen near Lyons, was
equally barren of result. By this time we had wandered over a
great deal of country, and patrolled the highways and by-ways
in anything but pleasant fashion — for this is the season of survey
and inspection of roads, and the contractors have " fanged " them
with any amount of newly broken stone. As a natural result, a
good many desertions took place here ; for Johnstown Kennedy,
the next draw, is some distance, and hunting men, like generals,
have to consider the retreating as well as the forward movement.
Blackchurch Inn has a good fame for its cordials, I believe ; at
any rate, not a few stopped here to try. My business was to pay
for a horse I had sent on the night before ; and so busy were they,
that five minutes, I should think, elapsed before I could find
any one good-natured enough to receive my cash. I mention
this circumstance to show how very quick the find and exodus of
the fox of the day was. The inn is not jive yards off the road,
only a few hundred from the lower gate of Johnstown Kennedy ;
and five minutes, at a rough calculation, was about the time I lost
sight of the pack, for I made my way into Sir Edward's park
directly, but only to find that the hounds were streaming away
towards the Coolmine Lodge. Well, what of that? Tis a sight
one has seen many score of times. Foxes are too fond of their
luxuries in Johnstown Kennedy to forsake its woods without at
least one long ring. So I galloped with the ruck ; but when we
emerged at the Coolmine Lodge, oh, horror ! no hounds were
visible, but some twenty-five or thirty men were to be seen from
half to a quarter of a mile ahead, climbing up the mountain-side
at the best pace they could command. Now, say what you like,
three-quarters of a mile bustling up an incline which begins with

234 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

the mild gradient of the Derby starting-point or the Bedford
chasing-course finish (to use popular illustrations), but increases
in steepness the higher you go, when hounds are beating you
every yard, takes most of the "' go " out of an average horse, and
leaves a residuum of limpness and flaccidity not very desirable
when ugly rotten banks, with the take-off and landing, rendered
indistinct by reason of gorse or heather, are before you and
inevitable. This was our fate, the fate of the polloi, as we emerged
from the gateway. Some rode hard to a point to the left, hoping
to catch the pack in Coolmine Gorse — they fared badly, I think ;
others, among whom were Lord Clonmell and the Hon. Charles
Bourke, galloped along the high-road towards Kilteel, turned up
a useful lane, and met the pack at a sort of lodge and plantation
on the top of Slieve Thou Hill. The twenty-five men or there-
abouts who had got well away with the hounds, were led by
Major Dent, on a well-known grey, who had a lead of fully a
hundred yards at one time. An inept minority, among whom
I formed a unit, followed the pack in a sort of despairing way,
with nothing to guide us ; for once the leading division had
dipped the hill, our clue was gone. Even at this stage a ragged
fence or two had told its tale of loose horses — how many I cannot
say, but I heard of several. It requires a good-hearted, good-
winded, handy horse to stay near hounds in these latitudes. A
ditch here ; a narrow-backed stone-faced bank, obscured by gorse,
there ; a small wall ; timber stuck in a gap— these are the impedi-
ments to your progress, and mostly at an angle dead against your
hunter. Once on top of the hill, the riding becomes very light
and springy ; it is covered with a growth of ling and heather and
one wonders why it is not peopled with black game. These are
the near objects; the distant ones — very distant ones — are three
or four men galloping ; a few more at a long interval. When you
look around you, horsemen seem to people the mountain aimless
and objectless — perhaps they have not yet caught sight of the
receding leaders. The hounds, meantime, after running very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 235

near Coolmine Gorsc, slipped off to the right, driving their fox
towards Gouchers Corse, but not giving him a chance of visiting
it — save in spirit — as they pushed him along with a blazing scent
up the reverse of the hill range, over the flat top, and so on with
unslackened pace into Tinode Woods, through which he was
rattled towards the Downshire ; but his strength was not equal to
the effort. He turned downwards, and ran past Mr. Cogan's
residence, the hounds making the whole hillside resound with
their melody, as we persevering plodders knew well to our
encouragement In a deep ravine a fresh fox (at least it is sup-
posed he was a fresh one) was tallied away into the open, and
the hounds were clapped on to him. For a quarter of a mile he
ran the Kilteel road, the hounds working admirably in spite of
the stampede in their rear, when he turned sharp to the right
hand, crossed a few grass fields, and, who-\vhoop ! he got to
ground in a bank in the corner of a field. Whether there was a
sewer or burrow there, I cannot say ; for 'twixt myself and the
pack, a few yards only distant, stretched a bank, not all too
sound, at the far side of which was what some would call a ditch,
others a quasi-nullah, and here I confess my mount declined any
further risks on her own account or mine, perhaps prudently ;
but possibly her nerves, like my own, were shocked by what
I saw — a young horse coming good pace to the bank, flying it,
and then in mid-air just managing to kick back, and so save a
bad fall in all probability.

This is a most imperfect version of a very fine fast run, and
of the chase and escape of a very sporting bold fox, who it may
be hoped will infuse his intrepid, straightforward ways into the
race of vulps at Johnstown Kennedy. I saw nothing of it except
the last little bit with what we suppose was a second fox. I fancy
very few out of the original good starters stayed at all near the
pack, while I hear not more than a dozen could be called within
reasonable distance. Some hunters that I know to be good vale
horses and safe fencers came down at these peculiar obstacles,

236 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

and a popular general officer looked in a perilous position for a
moment or two, but got off all right. Kilteel — a very happy little
hill covert, formed of a grove well lined with gorse — was drawn
blank ; and here a dispersion took place, not a few having, like
myself, a long journey before them.

I forgot, in alluding to Friday, the igth, in Meath, when they
were at Philpotstown, encircled by brimming rivers, to mention
that they killed a fox from Meadstown after a ring, and had a
very sharp gallop from Tullaghnogue till stopped by darkness.
On Saturday they had lots of hunting about the Loughcrew Hill
and in Clonabray, but nothing very brilliant or decisive.

On Monday the flood ban was taken away from the brave
Ward Union men, and a special train from the Broadstone took
down a rather select field to the meeting-place, Batterstown station.
There were one or two Kildare men out, a Louth man or two,
a good many of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, and one or two Innis-
killings, one or two Queen's Bays and 5th Dragoons, added to
about the usual number of the members ; Mr. Turbitt acting as
the master. A fine run, which may roughly be described as to
and from Culmullen, over a line of beautiful grass vale — say six
miles in all — was spoilt by greyhounds and colleys, who cut in
constantly, ruining scent and directness. Two colley dogs com-
pletely marred the first stage of the second chase by Parsonstown
Manor ; the second stage of thirty-five minutes was good.

I alluded to Mr. Hamilton Blubber's recent good sport, epito-
mising rather vaguely, I fear, one or two good pursuits I had heard
of. On one of these occasions, when the hounds had just missed
their prey, which they had well earned, the covert-keeper came on
the scene, and when the master asked him for a spade or pickaxe,
or something of the sort, declared that, so far from aiding in such
vulpecidism, " he would kill the man who attempted to dig out the
fox." Upon this Mr. Stubber took the mattock, went to work,
dug up the fox himself, broke him up, and astonished the keeper.
A master of hounds must sometimes be master of men. M.F.H.'s

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 237

are too often the involuntary slaves of some of their dependents,
who atesume airs of arrogance because they have much in the way
of marring and making sport in their hands. An occasional strong
lesson is not a bad thing.

On Wednesday last Mr. Filgate had a good hour with a fox
from Stephenstown, killing in the open ; a pleasant thirty-five
minutes from Clyde Court, through Corballis and Kilmoony, to
ground at Rathtrist.

On Friday, ipth, a good gallop from Greenhills, through
Mosney, Corballis, and Ballygarth, died away as a storm came
on ; a second, from Dardistown, ended the same way.

Swainstown, the handsome residence of Mr. and Mrs. Preston,
standing in rather extensive woodlands, was the meeting-place of
the Meath hounds on Tuesday, the 23rd instant. It forms one of
a sort of quadrilateral of parks and pleasaunces which beautify
the fertile bit of vale through which the Meath line meanders (I
cannot say rushes) quietly, so as to give the traveller ample scope
to survey the beauties of Killeen (Lord Fingal's castle), Dunsany
(Lord Dunsany's), and Warrenstown, on the far side of the metals.
It is very near Kilmessan, a railway station. So, in spite of a
very dirty morning, there was a very large accession of Garrison
and Ward Union pursuers, while Upper and Lower Meath were in
great force, and strong in cavalry. Kildare was championed by
the Earl of Clonmell on Conrad, Mr. and Mrs. More O'Ferrall,
Mr. Reeves, and one or two more ; while among the visitors were
Lord A. Lennox, the Hon. Mr. Harbord, Major Naper, Mr.
Gordon, Captain Magennis, Mr. Rose, Captain Peterson, Captain
O'Beirne, M.P. The ladies equitant formed a small troop, among
whom were the Hon. Mrs. Donaldson, Mrs. Johnson, Miss Cruise,
Mrs. Preston, Miss Coleridge, Mrs. Magennis, Mrs. Drake.

I said the day was a dirty one, in sailor's parlance ; a lands-
man might say filthy. A strong south-easter was blowing a gale,
while at intervals — at least, in the hour before the meet — the rain
gushes came down heavily; they were lighter during the day.

238 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Kilcarty Gorse is the piece de resistance of this meet, and many,
I think, came expressly to see it drawn. I believe such was the
intention of Mr. Turbitt and a few of his friends, who hoped to
get their gallop from it early, then post off to Kilbrue, where one
of the best of the Ward Union red deer was reported as recently
viewed, and for this purpose some drag hounds were posted at a
convenient distance. This plan was prevented, first by Jem
Brindley's arrival with the news of the red deer having decamped
from the Kilbrue feeding grounds ; secondly, by Kilcarty's holding
no fox to-day. They had searched Swainstown woods and planta-
tions in vain previously. A fox turned up at the third venture in
a plantation which forms one of the boundaries of Dunsany Park.
The hounds started on capital terms with him, and ran him very
fast and musically across some grassy stretches with a small inter-
vening brook, which afforded some fun ; but scent was most
nickering and changeful, and in twenty minutes or twenty-five this
fox was hopelessly lost. The Hill of Glaine seemed full of the
much-desired quadruped, and one for a moment led to hopes of a
run, as he faced outwards for Culmullen in the teeth of the gale ;
but he too in a very short time turned parkwards, and baffled the
pack. We were now, I believe, fairly en route for the open
country, when a fox turned up in a skirting wood belonging to
Killeen, and he was rattled up and down (scent, strangely enough,
seeming just as good among the trees as outside), and forced across
the Dunshaughlin road, only to be lost in his turn. We are now
by the verge of Gerrardstown Gorse, a large safe double in front
of us, every one at attention, and with his spot picked out for a
quick start. Before us are fine wide grassy fields, over which we
strided a fortnight ago in pursuit of the Corbalton fox ; behind, at
a distance of half a mile or so, the chain of parks and plantations
through which we had been cub-hunting with very poor result all
the morning. Every chance of the open was given our fox, whom
we had just heard of; every chance seemed against his running
parkways. But his motives were not in accord with ours; so,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 239

crossing the Trim road, he got back to the woods ; and there I
left them, having a lame horse or a tender horse under me, and
not caring for a repetition of the earlier experiences of the day.
They took the fox very fast to Corbalton, I heard since.

The Upper Meath men were very jubilant over a capital day's
sport which they had yesterday, of which I fear I can only give a
meagre sketch. The meeting-place was Slane, the village by Lord
Conyngham's fine park and castle of the same name. The
coverts were full of foxes, and one forced out seemed inclined to
make Grange Geath Gorse ; but, perhaps fearing the ascent, he
held on by Hussey's Gorse and Tankardstown, and was rolled
over in the open near the latter place, after a very long and per-
severing chase. " The Graigs " furnished the second fox, who led
hounds and horses at a most stretching pace for eighteen minutes
through Stackallan, over Barstone Hill by Slane, and then ran for
some distance over the line of the morning fox, when he got to
ground in a burrow. Scent, specially in the afternoon hours, was
pronounced very good ; the country, too, rode far lighter than on
the Dublin side of the county.

" Oh, for a muse of fire ! " says our great dramatic poet, " that
should ascend the highest heav'n of inspiration" — or invention —
which was it ? Oh, for an observing eye ! says your scribe, and
the power of reproducing, even faintly and dimly, a photograph of
a magnificent chase which the Ward Union hounds have just had.
No colouring, no embellishment, is required ; a tithe part of the
bare unsophisticated reality would be enough to set the imagina-
tions of those who love to ride for eight or ten miles straight over
peerless pastures, unprofaned by the plough for many a genera-
tion ; over wide fair fences, where on a good hunter — a real work-
man— you can go almost recklessly at the first place that presents
itself in the line of obstacle, and then, if you think you have three
or four more miles in hand, you will find five or six companions in
your wild ecstacy, a streaming pack, and a deer with some " go "
left still in its agile frame and unchoked lungs in front of you.

24o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

He is not magnifying a pursuit which he saw well himself, or was
fortunate in ; on the contrary, it was his lot to get into the very
first ditch, having charged a wide spot with perhaps insufficient
energy, and, as extrication involves a few very precious seconds,
a stern receding chase. Men and horses succumbing totally
after a few miles, some plodding on perseveringly, most abandon-
ing pursuit after seven or eight miles had been compassed — these
were the sights which his eye took in as he strained it to make out
the path of pursuit, and to get some idea of the vicissitudes and
the geography.

Those who travel by the Meath line, if they have any hunting
fire in their composition, must be attracted by the wide and vividly
green fields which stretch away to the horizon on either side of
the metals, unarrested by any chain or barrier of hill, lake, or sea,
though every here and there the land seems to swell into gentle
undulations ; and these in this flat land they call hills, because
they give an immense command of survey and vision. It is a
very rare thing hereabouts to meet a ploughed field. The land is
worth (I speak roughly) some ^5 round by the statute acre, and
many would be glad to take any amount of it, I believe, at that
figure. For many a square mile this pastoral land is entirely free
from anything like clusters of parks or woodlands. It is devoted
to cattle mainly ; it is strongly and deeply fenced, but the fences
are fair and untrappy, and for the most part singles. A few farm-
houses dot it about, and a few herds' cottages ; an old chapel and
church rear their modest forms in the landscape ; otherwise it is a
wilderness of grass ; nearly treeless, with strong quick hedges to
shelter the stock.

The Ward Union hounds rendezvoused at Baytown Park on
the 24th, a nearly treeless park, the nominis umbra being almost
the only appreciable shade to be met with. It is about a couple
of miles from Dunboyne, and twelve English, to calculate roughly,
from the metropolis. The coach of the 3rd Dragoon Guards
brought a fair number of soldiers from Dublin — dragoons, rifle-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 241

men, staff, and artillery. Lord Langford came from Summerhill ;
Mr. Rose, of Limerick, from Dublin; while Messrs. Macneil,
Tuthill, Murphy, Davis, M'Gerr, Butler, Morris, etc., are more or
less connected with the neighbourhood. The majority of the
other pursuers, some thirty or forty, hailed from Dublin city. Mr.
Turbitt was the acting master of the ceremonies; but there was
little preliminary preparation. The deer was enlarged very near
the meeting-place, on the way to Vcsington (to be topographical),
and the hounds started off with a head which looked like a fast
gallop. A wide ditch, some eight or ten feet broad, hairy and
deep, is the first obstacle. A few got over the first spot charged ;
a few hesitate, one or two get in, the majority flank it; pace is
good. It is rather more than a mile to Batterstown Parsonage,
and here we jump into a laneway, which, in a few hundred yards,
leads us towards Ballymaglasson and BlackhalL There is a mo-
mentary pause here. Then the line leads on straight, and most in-
telligibly, on towards " the Hatchet " — a celebrated Meath fixture,
keeping parallel to the Dunboyne road. For two or three miles
the even flat tenor is held on, when the land begins to rise a little
as we pass Mr. M'Gerr's farm, and rise the celebrated hill of the
Mullagh, a great low grassy wart on the smooth face of nature,
which commands a very wide prospect ; a mile or two more brings
us past Kilmore Parsonage, and the chase appears holding on for
Summerhill, Lord Langford's park, some three or four miles
westwards ; but presently our deer bends by Moynalvey chapel
(the field was here reduced by desertions, falls, accidents, lost
shoes, and what not, to very small proportions indeed), brushes
past Beltrasna Gorse, to ascend another slight gradient (but how it
told !) to Culmullen. Then once more it is downhill, and it leads
on to Warrenstown village ; then by the outskirts of Dunsany
(here are two phases of the royal sport, for we were in this district
yesterday) to Drumree station. Then in a few moments followed
the capture, at a point very near Dunshaughlin village. Messrs.
M'Gerr and Fitzgerald were, I believe, the nighest during the last

242 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

stages of the run ; and, as Mr. M'Gerr started in front, it is a fair
inference, judging by what one sees of his riding habitually, that
he was in a forward position all through. With these two were
Messrs. Wardrop, Waldron, Rose, Hone, and one or two more ;
while Mr. Murphy (on Sapling) and Mr. W. Butler were in the
van for some distance. Many had stopped, or been forced to
stop, four, five, and perhaps six miles from the finish ; and this
tells its tale to people who know anything about hunting when
I add that there was not a single sensational jump — no eighteen
feet of deep water, no stiff timber barrier, no masonry wall ; the
fences were large and fair all through ; but pace, distance, and
occasional rising ground told their tale on slack condition and
flaws in the ancestral tree. It is a bold assertion to make, but
I do not think such a run possible in any other part of the three
kingdoms — certainly not in any portion of " the shires " within my
experience. I should estimate it at over a dozen miles, nor do
I think the hour was very much exceeded ; but I did not time the
run, and I speak by conjecture, though not quite without data.

On Tuesday last the Kildare hounds met a fairly large field at
Sallins in storm and tempest. Bellavilla Gorse furnished a fox,
who ran through Longtown into Firmount, then shaped his course
along the boundaries of these two places, and, inclining to the left
hand through Killibegs, made Downings, where he found sanc-
tuary in the root of an old ash tree, which has long been a fox
nursery. It was a fast twenty minutes over a rather nasty line of
country. The wild gorse of Gingerstown (Castle Keely failing to
hold) supplied the second runner. He made his point for
Landenstown, and reached it in sixteen minutes of galloping pace;
and here he got a few moments' breathing space, when he started
for Donore, but, headed after a few fields, ran by Castle Keely
back to Landenstown, where he was rolled over. Grief and dirt
were very conspicuous after this last scurry, which lay through
rather swampy lands.

The Kilkenny hounds are, by all accounts, doing full justice

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 243

to the stout old foxes for which the county has long been famous.
Thus, on Wednesday, the i yth, they met at Knocktopher, when
Sir James and Lady Langrishe were the hosts, the field the guests,
at a hunting breakfast. Kiltorkan Gorse supplied the fox of the
day; he skirted Coolmine, Sir John's Gorse, Knockmilan, and
Firgrove, ran back to Kiltorkan, and was killed close by Sir John's
Gorse after an hour and a quarter. On Friday a ring from the
" Rock " was rather below the Freshford average, where they met.
On Monday, the 22nd, they were at Jenkinstown, the park of
Mr. George Bryan, one of the county members, beyond which to
the north'ard there is some fine wild country. After some wood-
land work they drew Dunmore Park, Lord Ormonde's covert,
found, and had a sharp ring, then a quick scurry over Mr. Doyle's
farm, killing their fox when he was apparently bound for Castle-
comer Coverts.

Kildare is still masterless — the horn is within the grasp of
a competent stranger. A quasi competitive examination as to
qualifications of head and heart, purse and person, venatic voca-
tion and experience will be instituted. Among the examiners will
be Lords Drogheda and Clonmell. It is the first time that the
office has been open, for hitherto the succession has been most
strictly limited to countrymen, and the new expansion of liberal
ideas in this direction is due, I rather think, more to a combination
of circumstances than to any new difficulties in a master's path, or
any diminution of the credit attached thereto. Ideas are apt to
take involuntarily a financial turn at this season, when reflection
follows festivity, and tradesmen, with " the first, second, and third
of this tenor," are apt to draw the pensive mind in this direction.
The tergiversation of the Turks — those terrible Turks ! — " the
wisdom of the Egyptians," will not be lost on us as a nation if we
follow steadily on the path of prudence and retrenchment on
which we have entered, even in Kildare. I throw it out as a sug-
gestion that candidates for the office should be invited to enter
horses for the annual red-coat race which winds up the Kildare

244 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

season, and that a decided preference should be given to what one
may call a double first — the man who wins in both classes, the
1 4 stone and the 1 2 stone. Among the possible masters for Kildare,
I hear Lord Shannon and Captain Cosby mentioned. Their hunting
antecedents are too well known for me to allude to them now.

On Friday, the Westmeath hounds had a very fair day's sport
from Drumcree and Hope's Gorse, to which I may refer by-and-by.
The last run was very promising till a colley dog intervened and
marred it

On Saturday the Ward Union hounds were neither very happy
in their country nor their quarry ; while on Monday their efforts
to hunt in tempest were not crowned with the success which often
attends enterprise and adventure.

The Kildare hounds had a very long hunting run on Saturday
from Cryhelp, followed by a very quick burst from the Blackthorns,
which was continuously good as long as light lasted. On the
24th, Mr. Filgate, after drawing Beaulieu and Newtown both
blank, found at Castlecoe, and had a very sharp quarter of an
hour by Colistoun, and by the shore behind Rath into Newtown ;
from the latter they forced him away into Blackball, where he got
to ground in a rabbit hole. Nearly forty minutes, all told. A
second fox turned up in Blackball ; he ran round the park first,
then crossed the railway by Drumshallon, left Rokeby on the left,
and again crossed the rails by Carrickbogget ; and, racing past
Walshestown chapel, took a line straight to the hill of Almonds-
town. Up to this the hounds had never checked, but here they
probably changed foxes, taking one on to the strand at Ryndstown,
when light failed, though the fox, dead beat, was just in front of
them. On Friday, the 26th, they met at Collon, but did not find
till they reached Tenure Gorse, the fox taking them a splendid
line to Mullerry, where he got to ground under the old church.
Finding at Painstown, they took their fox across the Ardee
racecourse, then by Dromina into Dunleer Court, thence to
Rathescar and across to Collon, when a badly stopped earth saved
him, after running for one hour and a quarter.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 245

XVII.

" Many a day from yonder spinney, in November moist and chill,
Have I seen the wily animal steal slowly up the hill. "

The fox in ambush — "The Ward" at the eighth mile-stone — Snow and storm —
Drumcree — Brannoxtown — Pageant at Abbotstown.

I HAVE been spending some short intervals between hunting in
studying something of the natural history of fox life. Any one
who has observed a chained fox for any time will have seen how
keen he is in watching the birds within his purview — or within
his pad-reach, to be more exact — no cat is stealthier or quicker
in striking ; a pigeon has a poor chance within chain limit. Now,
close to my back lodge there is a small field of cow-cabbage,
which, till the quice or wood-quests of the neighbourhood
swooped down upon them (like locusts in Kansas), were most
healthy of heart, and vigorous and round of girth ; now they are
picked as bare as the Monument, except in a few spots. When-
ever I put a pointer into this field he stands rigid, and up jumps
a splendid old dog-fox, red as a rose and bushy of brush, within
a few yards. Now this fox must I think have followed the quice,
and must have been lying in ambush for them among the few
uneaten cabbages; for the field in question is bounded by a
broad, sunny bank, full of gorse, grass, and warm lying ; nor do
I think he would persist in staying in the plough for any less
motive after having been disturbed by man and dog. The quice

246 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

are exceedingly numerous, and the mischief they have done is
very great. I should think a judicious fox watching his oppor-
tunity would have no difficulty in making his right and left.

Having enlarged upon one or two very brilliant hunting
passages which came under my ken, I fear I have omitted not a
few moderate days with the fashionable packs within reach of the
metropolis. Some of these may be dismissed in a very few lines.
Thus, the Meath hounds at Trim on Friday last excited any
amount of eager hope and expectation in many bosoms ; but the
swollen current of the Boyne arrested the tide of pursuit from
Trimblestown, which up to this watery barrier had glided along
very rapidly ; nor did the evening's hunting from Clifton Lodge
(Tullaghanogue being foxless) make amends for the early dis-
appointment.

The Queen's Bays' harriers continue to keep the neighbour-
hood of Cahir and their masters very well occupied, as they find
the hares of the county very stout and inclined to run straight ;
one on Thursday last only succumbed after four miles' straight
going at good trying pace.

On Saturday I followed the precept of the wise in their
generation in wooing fortune, namely, to follow on my luck — Wed-
nesday's luck — for, say what you will, there is much luck in hunting.
Misfortunes, says the bard of Avon, seldom come in single spies,
but in battalions ; so a victorious and successful pack of hounds
often throws in for several good things in rapid succession ; while
a demoralized, baffled, and dispirited pack not seldom makes a
long repetition of bad days, till something or other brings a
reaction and turns the tide. The Ward Union hounds were
announced as meeting at the eighth mile-stone on the Dublin
road ; and, sooth to say, a very large section of hunting Dublin
turned out to welcome Charley and Jem Brindley and their
favourites ; one of the brightest days of the season, when in the
clear cold air of the afternoon every object in nature gleamed
forth with an almost pre-Raphaelite distinctiveness. It is no

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 247

wonder that soldiers and citizens, men of peace and men of war,
men of commerce, and men of technical learning, sons of Mars,
Themis, Esculapius, and I know not how many more Pagan
divinities, and daughters of Diana in carriages and habits swelled
the throng of pursuit, which was not confined by any means to
Dublin and its Garrison, for Captain Trotter was there from
Navan, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy from Culmullen,
Mr. and Miss Hussey, Mr. W. Butler, Captain O'Beirne, M.P.,
and several others whom one sees in the fox-hunting array ; while
among the crowd were one or two horses of public fame, such as
Fairy Queen, and one or two men who have stamped themselves
as capable horsemen between the flags. Clock-like punctuality
seems to mark the Ward Union movements, and, indeed, any
slackness in this respect, considering that the meets are fixed
for the easy time of 1.15, would in these short days be very
dangerous. A by-road, down which we wound past the chapel
of Donoughmore, brought us to a place called Miltown — not
much of a misnomer, because, if there were no mill actually in
esse there, there were brooks hard by which might be utilized to
any extent

The moment we got inside a gateway, near a house in ruins,
the hounds began to run fast ; but in five or six minutes they
came back very nearly to their starting-point, and then com-
menced the pursuit in real earnest ; it led us fairly straight for
about a mile, and perhaps a half in addition, over some widish
but fair fences, when, between mistakes and cannons, an odd
loose horse might be picked up, and a man, tired of bay, might
turn to chestnut Robertstown is our next stage, and, crossing
the road by a small wall, we are in a valley watered by the Fields-
town brook. It is bounded by a wire fence ; but the wire is open
in spots, and so we pass through, not without delay, while the
hounds are topping a gorsy hill in front of us, looking as if we
are in fox pursuit. Soon we come to a very miry laneway, with
strong quick hedges on either side. It has one or two passes;

248 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

but if you miss these, and fancy you can find something better
higher up or lower down, you are doomed to a stern chase,
perhaps never to catch the flying pack till they reach the sea-
board, a few miles to the eastward. Such was not the fate of any
to-day; for the deer, after running to Fieldstown, turned back-
wards, and shaping a course towards Palmerstown, got back to a
point near Ashbourne, where a capture was made. The county
to-day was not anything like so pleasant as the Ward Union deer
have traversed recently — not so large, perhaps, but very irregular
— with fences, of which some seemed impracticable to the
ordinary calibre of hunters, and not reassuring at a glance to
either man or horse. Few saw the run well after its earlier stages,
and many falls marked its progress, among the supine being one
or two of the very best-mounted men in this part of Ireland.

There was a project for an attempt on the liberty of an out-
lying deer at Kilbrew, but I hardly think it could have been
executed; the distance and the little daylight remaining being
strong arguments against carrying it out to-day.

Sir David Roche's pack has been showing fair sport, but
without passages as brilliant as in the earlier part of the season
till last week, when they found a good fox in Main Gorse, who
led them a tremendous chase over the best part of their vale
towards Ballingarry. He did not, however, enter this covert, but
passed it on the right, pointing for Ahylin Wood ; but neither did
he enter this stronghold, but pushed on for some more distant
goal, till the pack viewed him and rolled him over : a nine-mile
point, probably twelve as the hounds ran. I regret I cannot give
you the time, for it was not taken.

On Sunday I think even the poachers, with their greyhounds
and curs, must have been beaten off by the hyperborean weather,
which began with some smart volleys of hail and ended in a
snowstorm, which was heavy enough to lie on the sodden and
water-logged fields till everything was draped in white. By
Monday a tempest of wind and rain had obliterated nearly every

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 249

vestige of snow, but hunting ! — I write in the forenoon — no one
but a hardened old Centaur would think of such a thing ! And
yet they did hunt ! I write in the evening. The meet at
Culmullen cross-roads is now a fait accompli ; but Beckford was
right, hunting in tempest is seldom stamped with success. I had
no idea that snow, succeeded by sleet and gushing rain, could in
twenty-four hours have flooded the country, which was just
beginning to acknowledge the drying processes of the last four
or five days' respite from rain and storm to the extent it has
actually done. Not only has every field a small lacustrine system
of its own, which makes an almost even division of the surface ;
but the roads are turned into canals in many places by the over-
flow of brooks and gorged conduits, and the driving wind lashed
these canals and temporary water-ways into miniature billows
and surf ; the cattle and sheep were huddled together, cowering
from the storm, wherever any shelter presented itself; and the
rustics, when asked about the arrival of the hounds and the
prospects of a chase seemed to question your sanity. However,
come they did, with their wonted punctuality — for Ashbourne
time, let me tell the reader, is practically equal to Greenwich time
in its precision. I suppose the truth was that so sudden was the
storm there was no time to countermand horses, boxes, etc. ; and
the fact of a special train leaving the Broadstone terminus every
Monday made it imperative on the Brindleys to be there. Of
course the field was small and select ; but it comprised some of
the hardest elements to be met with, among them being Lord
Langford, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, the Messrs. Hone,
Mr. Allen, etc. The red deer, when enlarged near the new
chapel or church, sailed away with the wind on her quarter,
through Cultromer, then turning to the left, gained the Cross
Keys, and held on through Mr. Doyle's farm ; then the Dublin
road looked far too attractive to be passed by for holding fields,
and along this track she continued till Batterstown station was
reached, when the Meath line tempted her, and along this she
ran in full view of the pack.

250 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Drumcree, the residence of General the Hon. Leicester Curzon
Smythe, was the meet of the West Meath hounds last Friday.
Three foxes turned up in the gorse, and the hounds settling to
one sent him along towards Winetown, where he was turned back
and forced to run through Glanavea and Drumcree again ; he
then went away for Loughbawn, but was foiled once more in this
impulse, and he again tried Winetown, but only to be again
headed. He now made for Barbavilla, but when crossing the hill
over Collinstown the hounds ran from scent to view, and rolled
him over in the open close to Collinstown village. A good
hunting run ; one hour and twenty-five minutes, and the latter
part of it was fast. They next found a brace in Hope's Gorse,
and ran one of them fast over a good line towards Knock Ion
Hill Gorse ; but when within a mile of it a colley dog coursed
the fox, and spoiled pursuit

Hunting and steeplechasing are, in their best forms, supposed
to be so closely allied, that it may not be out of place to comment
for a moment on the programme of the Cambridgeshire steeple-
chase, which I see advertised in your last issue. The framers of
the articles appear to me to have had one great object in view —
the apportionment of prizes to animals capable of carrying men
hunting, and not mere instruments of gambling, as so many of
the metamorphosed chasers of the day really are, while the
penalties and maiden allowances ought to attract good fields of
well-bred hunting horses to catch the eyes of buyers. I do not
know the Cottenham pastures ; but, as nearly every English
steeplechase course that I have seen is fully iclbs. severer than
the average of Irish tracts, here methinks is matter for reflection
to stewards and promoters of the Irish hunt races.

Saturday, the 27th, was not only a very enjoyable day, but it
yielded something more than an average of sport to the large
numbers who met at the village of Brannoxtown, where three
parks — Major Borrowes's, Mr. J. La Touche's, and Mr. Cramer
Roberts's — converge. Moorhill, the first covert visited, yielded

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 251

no fox ! so a stage was made to Cryhelp Gorse, from which a fox,
described as very small, broke and ran to the neighbouring gorse
of Copelands (two miles distant, more or less) and back again,
but by a different route. Then, forced a second time out of Cry-
help, he took a line towards Hollywood, and got round by rather
a circuitous process to Copelands. The pace over the bottom
lands, where scent lay warm, was, I hear, superb ; and on dit that a
noble and hard-riding eloquent lord left a cast of his profile each
side in the clay which lines the banks and ditches here. Another
exodus from Copelands leads our vulp back to Cryhelp, where the
covert-keeper intervened, and opened the earth for his stout little
protege. After three o'clock p.m. the Blackthorns at Harristown
were drawn blank, when a fox was viewed stealing away. The
hounds were laid on at once, raced him through Geganstown and
Ardenode, and forced him across the Ballymore Eustace road,
where his course lay over splendid old upland pastures, wide and
large, into Moorhill; hustled through the covert, he ran through
Geganstown and the Blackthorns across Rochestown and the
Dunlavin road, when he entered Sallymount, and here hounds
were whipped off from want of light

This must have been a very good day's sport by the strong
and decided impression it left on the strangers and visitors. I did
not see the fun myself, having been out with the Ward Union
stag-hounds at an interval of many miles. Among the occurrences
of the day was the fall of Kildare's best medium-weight (I think
I express the general opinion of judges) at one of the many
score of rotten, ragged, gorsy, crumbling banks, any of which are
quite capable of upsetting an uneducated or half-educated hunter.
His hunter got away from him, and was so full of "go" that,
when tracked, he was found trying to jump the iron railings which
protect the Ballynure churchyard, some six or seven miles distant
from the scene of the catastrophe.

On Tuesday the Duke of Marlborough held his first la>ee in
Dublin Castle, and to give heads of departments (as they used to

252 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

call them in the colonies) an opportunity of paying their devoirs
to her Most Gracious Majesty's representative in Ireland. The
temples of Themis were closed, and so were the fanes of Diana !
Hunting is, as a rule, most Conservative in its politics. Take any
field in England, and you will find a great majority, if red in
habit, most blue of instinct. And yet the Liberals have a most
decided supremacy in the knot of statesmen whom our Imperial
sister has sent over to guide us in the paths of equity and justice.
Against Lord Spencer, Lord Hartington, and Mr. Horsman I do
not think the Tories can name a single name of Irish hunting
eminence beyond Sir Michael Hicks Beach, our present Secretary.
To be sure, one or two of the dailies here, with effusive loyalty
overshadowing accuracy, made the Duke of Abercorn, our recent
Lieutenant, a Nimrod. In spirit he may have been, in heart I
believe he was one assuredly, but he never gained the accolade in
Irish hunting fields. His sporting fame was won on a different
arena.

"What shall my song be to-night, and the strain at your
bidding shall flow ? " sang the young lady at the piano, probably
emphasizing the "your" if the right man be in the drawing-room.
" Where shall my meet be to-morrow ? " was my paraphrase of
the melody on Tuesday, and if not exactly of mine, no doubt it
was that of many vacillators and undecided in the metropolis of
Ireland. I had made arrangements for visiting the Kildare
hounds on Wednesday myself, so I will speak presently of what
I saw in that county ; but the Meath hounds were at Larracor,
very accessible to pursuers in Dublin by railway to Trim ; and
on the whole, I think I should give the preference to the average
chances of sport from Larracor than from the coverts within reach
of the eighteen mile-stone fixture, if for no other reason than that
the field in the former would be considerably less than half that
to be counted upon at the latter, which generally brings an army
from Dublin, a legion from the Curragh and Newbridge, besides
pursuers from the Queen's County, Carlow, and it may be from

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 253

Kilkenny; not to speak of the very large numbers whom the
hospitable houses within a radius of four or five miles of Naas
pour forth upon the thronged cross-roads at this very famous old
fixture ! I think rain is telling : we have struggled against it, we
have become quasi acclimatized to it ; but the last wetting, the
last stable misfortune, has the same effect on the almost weather-
proof, water-proof pursuer that the ultimate feather has on the
camel's hump in the oriental apothegm. The meet was a very
small one, the smallest, I think, I ever saw at this place in an
experience of a few seasons. From before nine o'clock a.m., a
deluge of rain set in, taking the place of frost which had ruled
during the night ; a strong west wind drove it in, and the whole
westward horizon was surcharged with water. The Dublin divi-
sion, who came by rail to Sallins, suffered comparatively little ;
but many of those who had ridden or driven long distances by
road, looked externally as if an immersion or two in brook or
ditch could affect the condition of their clothes very little. Under
these circumstances it was not surprising to see good men and
hard men turn homewards from the meeting-place, or when near
it, for it did not look like sport in a very enjoyable form. And
yet I fancied, seeing the weather they encountered last Monday,
that a few Ward Union men would have shown at the meet, for
they are once more, as somebody remarked, " sus. per plu.?
which is a sort of apothecary's Latin abbreviation for " stopped by
rain," their country being under the dominion of flood. They
were, however, conspicuously absent. Dublin sent a strong
detachment of her Garrison and Staff; among them Major Gore,
Captains Bloomfield and Mills, and Mr. Thompson, of the Innis-
killings, Captains Colthurst and Crosbie and Lord Clanmorris, of
the Staff. Lord Oranmore and Captain Lascelles, too, came from
the metropolis. The Curragh was represented by Captains Han-
ning-Lee and Montmorency of the Staff, Captain Middleton of
the 4th, with sundry other soldier officers; while from " the hall "at
the Curragh were Mr. Hubert Moore and Miss Moore, Mr. Garrett

254 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Moore, Mr. Beasly, etc. Sir Erasmus Borrowes, who has not
been hunting so much this season as usual, was on a good-looking,
lengthy son of Canary's, a high-class-looking hunter all over.
Mr. Dyke was a visitor from Cumberland, Mr. Adair and Mr.
Skeffington Smyth came from the Queen's County ; Kildare
showed in smaller force than usual. Everything looked draggled
and soaked. Those in Cording's complete armour seemed about
the happiest, the hounds being huddled into a sort of ball, so
that you could hardly guess that there were eighteen couples by
the door of the little " pub " at the cross-road. With this attempt
at describing our surrounding discomforts let me dismiss the
preliminary business. Mr. Mansfield trotted us on sharply
enough for a quarter of an hour, and then on either side of the
road we have a long bit of narrow woodland ; this is Dunstown
Wood. The hounds had not been five minutes exploring the left
side of the hollow-looking covert — which has been very prodigal
of its fox blood — when a find was announced. A miry lane leads
across it, and we are in this, thinking our fox is bound for Stone-
brook ; but a sharp turn has led him to the corner of the wood,
and, if he meant Stonebrook at first, he now means it no longer.
Outside is a wide extent of commonage, intersected by some
drains and small brooks, where on a fine lark -provoking day you
would be sure to see much schooling and "fancy" jumping.
This is not a day for anything of the kind. Hounds are running
fast, and there are gaps and bridges over everything jumpable,
so on we go, till hounds pause at the far side of the common.
On it is, up the shoulder of Mullacash Hill, or a little spur of
that hill. Across the road, over a small wall, and there are the
hounds all gathered together round a sewer where foxes are very
fond of taking sanctuary when they can. Some jump back into
the road, those near the sewer are galloping on fast. The fox
has tried it, but finding it sealed has held on. Now hounds are
racing over a bit of spongy bottom land, across a by-road, and
on to Mr. Coffey's farm. Luckily, here there is another pause,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 255

or the tail men could not have got up. The track is now by
Mullaghboden Lands, leaving a most tempting covert of the
Baron de Robeck's unvisited not more than a few hundred yards
to the left. Here the soft ground and a large fence emptied a
saddle or two. Now the Ballymore Eustace road is crossed, and
we get into sound, hilly, upland grass, though some of the banks
are still lined with snow drift. Presently we cross the Rathmore
or Blessington road, and work on over a fine grass farm of Mr.
Flood's — hounds begin running hard once more ; another parallel
road is passed, and we are in the lands of Barrettstown Castle
(Sir E. Borrowes's residence). Excelsior! The track is now
rather steep, though the grass land rides light enough here. Soon
we are on the verge of Russboro' (Lord Miltown's park) ; some
of us now get hung up in a field, protected on one side by a high
rugged bank, on the other by wire. The line meantime leads on
towards Glending, crossing -the single bit of plough I can recollect
in the day's ride. Scent is failing and flickering ; the hounds,
I think, dragged on to Russboro'. Practically the run concludes
here, and it was really very good and animated in bits, sur-
prisingly good and sustained, the weather and the storm being
considered. Next we are overlooking Elverstown's magnificent
area of gorse, of which a portion is cut down, though, to my eye,
the covert still looks a very large one. A reluctant fox refuses
to face the open. Home and hot water now occurs to most men.
Among the curiosities of the day was a veritable twenty-seven-
year old huntress, as fresh as a kitten, and pulling her rider hard
on those steep hills where some of the young ones were quite
sobered. I find I was in error about the sequel of Saturday last
with the Ward Union stag-hounds. After the capture of the first
deer, a small party, with Mr. Turbitt, went to look for the outlyer
I referred to at Kibrew, found him by the fox-covert there, and
ran him by Reisk Covert and Gallstown House to the Poor-house
Gorse, thence by Parsonstown Manor to Crigmere and to the
Hatchet, through Jenkinstown by Colierstown Covert to Mulhussey

256 HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A.

Gorse, on by Mulhussey Castle, through Messrs. Chapman and
M'Cormick's lands to Moyglare (Captain Tuthill's park), till he
took refuge under the bridge of Moyglare, when the capture was
safely effected at 5.30 p.m. (he was found at 3.35); hounds,
I hear, had much the best of the long chase, some of which must
have been ridden by moonlight.

Sport in Meath has not been good this week by all accounts.
On that fearful Wednesday, when the Kildare hounds rendez-
voused at the eighteen milestone, the Meath pack met at Larracor,
but, owing to the storm, did not find till they got (rather late) to
Rahinstown Gorse, from which they had a pleasant thirty-five
minutes by Rathmolyon and the Bullring, over a tolerably good
line of country for the district

On Friday the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough held what
I may call a hunting levee at Abbotstown, the spacious park of
Mr. Ion Trant Hamilton, one of the county members. No fairer
frame could have been selected for a really beautiful and imposing
pageant The Court looked very courtly; his grace's equipages
were admirably turned out ; there was a most imposing display of
beauty most beautifully adorned. Dublin, civil, military, pro-
fessional, and commercial formed a grand gallery for the raree
show ; luckily the overcast forenoon spared the glory of toilettes,
the pride of Purple and Propert, the sheen of Hoby and Clarke.
An hour or two afterwards there was a tremendous gush of rain,
but by that time much of the carriage multitude had gone home to
luncheon, etc. A short ineffective run from Kilrue Gorse, which
introduced us to very large fencing, was all of sport. The
tempestuous day produced a fatal accident to one of the best
sportsmen in Ireland, Mr. Nicholas Archdale, whom I saw going
— not once, but always — admirably on his grey hunter, and made
it a very melancholy one for numbers.

I believe it is not premature to announce Mr. W. Forbes's
succession to the vacant mastership of the itildare hounds. That
he has accepted the horn positively and finally I am not prepared

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 257

to state ; but that the conference of the Kildare chiefs will end
like the miserable fiasco \ve have recently sickened over in the
Orient, I do not believe, as I feel assured that the county of
Kildare will be too glad to meet the proposals and conditions
which Mr. Forbes makes on his part. A very humble unit in the
hunt, I think it is to be congratulated very much on the happy
combination of circumstances which secure so very promising
a president No M.F.H. can guarantee sport to a country; but,
as the Patrician said to Sempronius, " he can deserve it." This I
am quite sure Mr. Forbes will do, and it will be very hard luck
indeed if, when immense energy (perfervidum Scotomm tngeniuni),
great experience, and a most intimate acquaintance with the
unwritten laws, maxims, and cabala of hunting are added to
entire devotion to the noble science, good results do not follow.
Eighteen or twenty years ago Mr. Forbes was attracted to Kildare
and its hunting grounds; he has been most staunch and un-
wavering in his allegiance ever since. Hence, though I do not
think he has a patent of naturalization, he is, by popular vote and
feeling, a Kildare man ; no man in Ireland or England has been
a better patron of sport legitimate, undefiled by gambling.

The Kildare hounds met at Courtown Gate on Saturday, the
3rd, and, as usual, the meeting-place was choke full, as well as
the avenues leading to it The hounds, thrown into the planta-
tions in front of the house, found instantaneously, crossed the
road, and raced for Laragh. Here, or just beyond it, there was
a check of some moments, and then the chase is renewed slowly
and fitfully to the Maynooth road, at which point it ends, so far as
the field and the body of the pack are concerned. I believe what
really happened was in this wise: The find was so quick that
many men were taken by surprise, while not a few fell at a drop
fence into the road coming out of the Courtown plantations.
These discomfited men got somehow (I think by a parallel road,
but I don't want to libel them or their hunters) to Laragh before
the field or even the pack. At the check I referred to five couple

s

258 H1BERNIA VENATICA.

of hounds hit off the line for themselves, and ran untidy to the
road (" silence," you know, " is the criterion of pace "), where
a small body under the banners of Captain Ponsonby, Mr. F.
Tynte, and Mr. Bellany, the latter on his capable roan horse, took
charge of them, and had a capital run, as I hear, with only
a single dwell by Taghadoe Gorse, into Cullen's Covert. Whether
we changed foxes or not in the last gorse I cannot say, but a fox
from it took us at capital pace over a nice line into Killadoon
Lands, where scent seemed to fail. Castletown Woods did not
hold a fox.

There has been capital sport in Kilkenny lately, from Killeen,
Ballykeefe, Kilfane, Summerhill, and Butler's Wood, while the
Curraghmore continue their triumphs, Kilcash and Early's Gorse
keeping up their reputation for good foxes. I regret I can only
refer to these packs just now.

P.S. — The Meath hounds had a very good day's sport on
Tuesday, the 6th, from Somerville, or rather Walshe's Gorse and
Kilmoon Sticks ; while Mr. Preston's harriers (the Bellinter) gave
a select field a most enjoyable hour and twenty-five minutes,
killing a very tough hare after a most sustained chase, which led
over Walterstown, Screen, and Tara Lands. By all accounts, this
was a very fine run indeed.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 259

XVIII.
" In the spring a fox's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

Abbotstown levte — Mr. Archdale's fate — "Snow-Storm" — Kilkenny and
Queen's County sport — Philpotstown and Rathmore — West Meath.

I MUST perforce hark back to the beginning of spring — if spring
really begins with the month of St. Valentine — dear to the young
men and maidens whose thoughts lightly turn to thoughts of love,
but abhorred by the polite postman. (Manners, you know, make
the postman.) Ventose, pluviose, but not venaticose, if one may
coin such a term, February Filldyke came in blustering and
gushing, determined not to leave the wild work of January
incomplete. The courtly ceremonials at the Castle, a first levee
and drawing-room, brought quite a flock of M.F.H.'s to the
metropolis of Ireland to pay the tribute of their loyalty and
respect to her Most Gracious Majesty's representative at Dublin
Castle ; and to stimulate their zeal in this direction I feel inwardly
assured that not a few causes gravitated mightily. Such an open
season was perhaps never recollected, nor one wherein the strain
on hunters was more continuously severe.

" Otium divos rogat impotenti prensus yEgseo."

" The M.F.H. he prays for frost,

Because his nags their bloom have lost,
And all his stable plans are cross'd."

I can fancy an M.F.H. under these painful circumstances sum-
moning his huntsman and stud-groom to his study, and announc-
ing his intention of visiting the capital and court of his country

26o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

for a few days. I can conceive the pathetic injunctions to his
huntsman during his absence to be sparing of, and tender to, the
remaining working lot; his passing a sort of short ad interim
Factory Act to limit the working hours of his over-wrought
establishment ; his careful and precise directions about the draw-
ing of the coverts, and so on. To be sure, all huntsmen have
not obeyed Wolsey's injunction to Cromwell, " fling away ambi-
tion," and opportunity occasionally will dull the small voice of
obedience; so I expected that possibly I might have heard of
one or two extraordinary passages of hunting history during this
semi-interregnum, but none have reached me so far. Another
potent cause, I feel assured, to drive masters Dublinwards at this
particular season was the lady vote — noto quid famina possit.
Dublin doctors are celebrated, and country dulness and damp
beget remittent spirits, to which only a course of medicine and
millinery can minister. Add to all these inducements the great
spring meetings, of which all M.F.H.'s nearly are ex-officio pro-
moters, and forced to interest themselves in — throw in a few
Castle balls and minor private dances — and the wonder will be,
not that masters of hounds ever got away from their kennels and
countries, but that they were able to return so quickly.

It would not be fair, I think, to the truth of hunting chronicle
to pass over the magnificent hunting function which took place
at Abbotstown on Friday, the 2nd inst, with the very meagre
comments to which scanty space and time restricted my observa-
tions last week. Hunting — fox-hunting especially — is many-sided,
and every side has its own attraction and charms for its votaries,
just as, with changing light, every facet in a well-cut diamond
sparkles and coruscates in turn. There is the sanguinary hunts-
man who thinks only of killing his foxes ; there is the less blood-
thirsty hunt servant, whose zeal fluctuates between the joy of
pursuit and the ultimate triumph ; there is the master, whose
anxious mind has to dwell upon a thousand subjects in the course
of the twenty-four hours, who has to be a little of all things to

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 261

all men and all women; there is the master who is a very Gallic
to all minor matters so long as he can show sport, and who lives,
moves, and has his being for this aim and object ; there is the
master who — simplex munditiis — abjures the pomp and vanities
of hunting pageantry, who looks with an angry eye at crowds
of carriages and hacks flocking to his meets, and occasionally
arranges his fixtures rather with a view to the discomfiture of
this element. The master of the Royal Meath hounds, be his
idiosyncracy what it will, has no option in the matter, or scarcely
any. Certain grooves and traditions bind him fast in invisible
but very sensible chains, and one of these is that on certain high
days he must bring his hounds to the neighbourhood of the
metropolis, timing his fixture so as to fall in with the dates of
drawing-rooms or court balls at the Castle, and that for a certain
space of time he must manoeuvre them before an immense
audience or gallery composed of elements the most heterogeneous
and incongruous. I suppose it is right that it should be so.
Hunting lives in the affection of all classes ; so it must be made
generally popular and pleasing. The spectacular, gossiping,
coffee-housing, pomp-and-pageantry side must have its innings
occasionally. Luckily, it is seldom a long one ; and, most
fortunately for Meath, the same day often combines the morning
pomp and parade of fine clothes and bravery of glorious apparel
with real genuine sport in the afternoon or evening. It was not
the case on the day I am now noticing. Last season it was quite
usual, and considered a matter of course. The old saw tells us
that "a rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight, a rainbow in the
morning is the shepherd's warning ; " and such a bow spanned
the heavens magnificently as I rode into Abbotstown on Friday
morning. A slight shower came down, and then everything
looked fairly serene in Mr. Hamilton's fine park, where undulating
grounds, large grassy spaces, fine old timber, and a system of
springs and rivulets make a very pleasant and picturesque scene.
There is a large space in front of the house, and presently it is

262 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

occupied by the outriders of the viceregal carriage, followed by
the equipages of the Castle party, which includes the Duke and
Duchess of Marlborough, Lord and Lady Antrim, Lord R.
Churchill, Lady Rosamond Churchill, Captain Kearney, Lord
Clanmorris, Captain M'Calmont, Captain Colthurst, A.D.C., and
Colonel Frank Forster, Master of the Horse.

A short distance off is the coach of the Inniskillings, driven
by Captain Heaviside. Innumerable carriages are Avandering
about through the park, among the smartest of which are Mrs.
Bagot's and Mr. Rose's. Abbotstown is not more than four
miles from Dublin ; so the Garrison in all its arms is there in great
force. Kildare sends Lord Cloncurry, the Hon. E. Lawless,
Mr. Forbes, General Invin, Captain Saunders, and some others
to represent her in the tournament. The morning is overcast,
but warm withal, so there is a capital opportunity for lounging
about among the Watteau-like groups of horse and carriage
people — a very mixed multitude, civil, military, professional,
commercial, histrionic. It is a conversazione al fresco and ci
cheval for half an hour, seeing that the train which brought the
master, his hounds, and staff up to Dunboyne from Navan is late
by that precise measure of time. Mr. Morrogh, the master of
the Ward Union hounds, receives a perfect ovation on his re-
appearance in public, driving his phaeton, after his severe accident
— a broken leg — some seven or eight weeks ago.

But here come the pack at last ! The woods of Abbotstown
are drawn pro forma (no fox could be expected to await his
enemies so patiently while the coast was clear). Nothing is
found, and presently the huge train, brilliant in colouring, moves
along, churning the rotten roads into mud-butter, till we pull up
at Holywood Rath, Mr. Thompson's residence, nearly always a
sure find ; and here fresh accessions to our numbers arrive,
among them Lord Langford, Lord A. Lennox, the Hon. Mr.
Harbord, Lord Rossmore, and the Hon. Mrs. Candy. The place
is foxless to-day, but a hard-riding dragoon makes a little bit of

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 263

amusement for the spectators by a water jump mangu^ where his
horse, a candidate for cross-country honours, is immersed for a
considerable time. The next stage is to Ballymacarney Gorse,
where a fox was proclaimed, chez lui very soon, but a fierce rain
and wind storm now came on with almost blinding violence ;
and, whether the fox got headed when he broke, as he did several
times, or the weather daunted him, I cannot say. Certain it is
that Mr. Waller, anxious to give us a gallop as quickly as he
could to warm and dry us, led us on to Kilrue Gorse, leaving the
sulky vulp master of the covert pro tern. There must have been
a fine house at Kilrue at one time. A long causeway leads to it ;
there are extensive ruins, and round them for a considerable
space runs an old moat, rather wide, with the masonry still
complete. The gorse is about a quarter of a mile from these
ruins. A very quick find, a bold start almost in the teeth of a
gale, some very large fencing, hounds flashing over the scent, the
fox forced back to sink the wind and scurry back to the gorse,
some grief, more very large jumping — this was the first stage of
our attempt at sport. It was followed by a second expulsion
from the covert, a slow run over a succession of charming fences,
with a brook or two, the direction being towards Ashbourne ;
and then the clue is hopelessly lost or blown away. I said there
was very large jumping — nothing sensational, no single obstacle
to go and look at afterwards, but every fence very wide, and one
double which I saw a couple of men do, led by an officer of the
3rd Dragoons, was passing big. The Hon. Harry Bourke,
mounted on The Lord-in-Waiting, showed us the way over a
yawner or two, where a bold leader was a blessing. Where poor
Mr. Archdale met his accident, I cannot say. I had been noticing
the very fine fencing of his grey hunter a few minutes before, and
in his resolute good hands such a catastrophe was the last thing
I anticipated.

" Quod quisque vitet nusquam homini satis

Cautum est in horas. Navita Bosporum

Poenus perhorrescit, neque ultra

Qeca timet aliunde fata."

264 . HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

I feel I have not done justice to the very splendid spectacle
at Abbotstown; space and time forbid my enlarging on it. It
combined something of a cross between a high-class English meet
— say at Cottesbrook, after the Northampton meeting — and one
or two features of Ascot. The show of horseflesh in the park
was very fine, and alone well worth going to see. I cannot notice
the hacks or hunters seriatim now, but a brown cob under Mr.
Richard Walshe's welter-weight (Lady Patricia's owner) looked as
if he would win ribands in the show-yard as well as give his rider
some hunting.

Saturday, the 3rd inst., was ushered in by snow and sleet,
which, of course, turned to the irrepressible rain during the
course of the day. The temperature was very low, and there
was a sting and bite in the wind, which every now and then proves
the precursor of tremendous scent. The Kildare hounds were at
a very favourite rendezvous, Courtown Gate, and the weather
desagremcns ; notwithstanding, there was a full and fashionable
meet at the entrance to Captain Davis's park. Meath mustered
strong there ; among the visitors thence being Mr. A. M'Neil,
Lord Langford, Lord Rossmore, Captain and the Hon. Mrs.
Candy, Mr. Dunne, Captain Tuthill, Lord A. Lennox, the Messrs.
Carew, Mr. Rynd, the Messrs. Purdon, Mr. M'Gerr. Dublin sent
Lord Oranmore, Mr. Hone, Colonel Frank Forster, Captains
Colthurst and M'Calmont; the Queen's County, Mr. and Mrs.
Adair.

The Courtown foxes have become a by-word for stoutness and
pace this season ; one was killed after a fine run to Donadea
Castle, Sir Gerald Aylmer's park, six or seven weeks ago ; a
second has beaten the hounds after a quick scurry several times.
But after such a night, and looking to the hollowness of the
plantations, few, I fancy, felt much faith in a Courtown find this
morning. Preservation and feeding will, however, do wonders,
and this day illustrates the theme. No sooner were the pack put
into the belt of timber opposite the house of Courtown than they

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 265

found ; the fox did not dwell a second, but raced away across the
Kilcock road, making his point for Laragh. Two fences now
intervene between the field and the area of the chase — one into
the plantation ; another out of it, a drop into the road I men-
tioned. Freeman, the huntsman, and some more, got falls at the
latter impediment, I believe. For my own part, having missed
my hunter, who was sheltering somewhere, I was fain to canter
back to a road which I hoped would prove parallel to part of the
pursuit.

" Suave mari magno turbantibus rcquore ventis
E terra alterius magnum spectare laborem."

" Sweet from the shore, when billows roar,
To view at ease the straining oar. "

I had no Larah Brook before me now, no other big obstacle.
How courageous and critical one gets on such occasions ! It
was a hard-riding lot of men as a rule, reckless of water — their
motto, " Be with them, I will." If a few thought of rheumatism,
or that they were not on their water-jumpers, or that the brook
was full of snow and sleet water, I respect their caution. I saw
no immersions as on the last occasion; but the pack have checked
suddenly. Three minutes! five! what can it be? and when
they go on again, led by Crystal, there does not seem much dash
about them. Here they come : Major Dent, on his grey, jumps
first over a bank into the Maynooth road ; then come Mr. Percy
La Touche and Lord Langford, and some fifteen or twenty soon
after. At the road hounds seemed utterly helpless. The facts
we learned afterwards : five couples of hounds had slipped the
body of the pack, had been met on this very road by a few
pursuers who were "out of it," and taken on straight after the
hunted fox into Cullen's Gorse, some three miles distant. This
they did, I am told, with only a single check. Meanwhile, we
held on through Taghadoe after them, and the divisions of our
army were reunited at Cullen's Gorse. From this we expelled a

266 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

fox — let us suppose him our hunted one, for it will give more
interest to the narrative. He set his mask first in the Straffan
direction, but the breeze was against that move ; so he doubled
back, crossed the sort of fosse road by which we usually approach
the gorse, and then streamed away at good pace over a wide tract
of moory land which has been reclaimed from bogdom or lake-
dom by draining off the surface water through very deep cuttings.
One of these cuttings now interposes itself — a canal in width,
with high embankments of mud and marl. One or two men,
among whom were, I think, Major the Hon. E. Lawless and
Mr. W. Blacker, find a spot where they can jump it. Most of us
forded it, our horses sliding down the embankments very craftily.
A slight check as we rise into higher ground — only momentary,
however — and on we go cheerily enough till in sight of a school
or institution for orphans, founded by the Conolly family.
Another check occurs ; then come a road, a locked gate — which
has to be forced — a high wall for the hounds to climb ; and all
this gives the fox a great lead. We are now in small fields ; but
the hounds work the fast-cooling trail admirably. It leads into
Killadoon, Lord Leitrim's park. Our fox has beaten us. He
was a very good one, and I trust he may return safely to Cour-
town. The day was one of grief and tumbling. Will Freeman
led off with a brace ; Lord Clonmell followed suit with the same
number. Mr. Allen M'Donough had a handsome black hunter
of much value killed. Mr. Blacker, I hear, staked one of his
good greys.* Major Dent's, I hope, escaped unscathed;

" For o'er the dale,
Or o'er the vale,
Or on the mountain's side,
, That gallant grey,

Can race and stay
The fleeting pack beside."

* Snow-Storm, one of the finest hunters, and of the stoutest in Ireland, died
of the effects.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 267

Castletown did not hold a fox this evening. Among the casualties
of the season, Mr. Filgate lost two good hounds lately in a rail-
way accident.

The hunting annals of the Kilkenny hounds may be thus
epitomized. Friday last, meeting at Ballykeefe, they found in
Killeen, and after much bullying forced their fox into the open,
when he ran very fast past Pottle Rath to Ballintaggart Wood,
where he got to ground. From Ballykeefe they had an evening
run, first towards Knocroe, then a ring by Shipton. On Monday
snow impeded proceedings at Cappana cross-roads, so they went
to Kilfane (Sir R. Power's park), and killed a fox there after an
hour's work. From Summerhill a fox broke handsomely over the
Thomastown road by Ballylynch, skirting Mr. Bryan's gorse, and
eventually getting back to Summerhill, where hounds were stopped.

On Wednesday they were at Coolagh cross-roads, and after
some desultory hunting from Garryricken they went to Butler's
Wood ; and, finding there, ran a fox by Nine-mile House and
Mr. Wall Morris's plantations towards Garryricken, and back
again to Butler's Wood, where he just beat the hounds by getting
to ground.

The Ward Union hounds are hunting again ! On Saturday,
at the ninth milestone from Dublin on the northern road, they
met a manageable field, and had, I am told, very good sport,
running their first deer, a red one, as far as Ardcath ; while the
second, a fallow, enlarged on Garristown Hill, took them back
kennelwards to Old Town. On Monday Newbridge held out
attractions for the amateurs of lep-racing, but more especially the
soldiers, who not only support the meeting in the most substantial
way by hospitality almost sans bornes, but by entering horses and
riding freely for their "pals" and the public also. I did not
visit " the Cornet's course," preferring to throw in my lot with the
Ward Union hounds at Batterstown station, where the assembly
was full and fashionable, supplemented by a good many visitors
and Meath men, among whom were Captain and the Hon. Mrs.

268 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Candy, Captain Trotter, Captain Lascelles, Lord Langford, Mr.
A. Macneil, Captain Kearney, Lord A. Lennox, Mr. White,
Mr. and Miss Coleridge, Messrs. Purdon, Kelly, M'Gerr, Bayley,
Waldron, M'Cormick, Grey, Trotter, Rafferty, Gore, Allen.

The first deer uncarted was a red one ; the scene a field near
the Poor-house at Dunshaughlin. From this point, with a happy
instinct, she turned away from the swamps and brooks near
Lagore, and made a pretty straight line to Parsonstown Manor,
through which she ran a course nearly parallel to the Meath
railway. Emerging from these lands, we come to the boundary
fence — a double not unlike the well-known Punchestown fence
before it was cut down to more pleasant proportions. There is
no baulking or craning ; some forty or fifty take it in good
hunting style, and then we come to a wide " fly " that leads into
sound, hard grass land — rather a treat in these soppy times for
our hunters. It looks like a beautiful gallop, when an ill-omened
shaggy-haired cur turns our deer almost into the pack. A thick
hedge, however, protects her ; the hounds stick to the line most
truly, and now we are recrossing the broad double I referred to,
passing once more through Parsonstown Manor. And now
comes the celebrated Bush Farm, with its Aylesbury-vale-like
fields; only once in, we have to get out The obstacle is a
narrow ledge of bank, made of recently dried mud apparently,
which gives horses' hoofs very little holding ; beyond it a very
wide ditch, full of water and slime. Some found better spots
than others ; the earlier adventurers fared, I think, best. I saw
Messrs. Meldon and Allen, two very heavy men, on the right side,
having had very little of a scramble. Lord Langford's horse did
it very cleverly ; so did several others ; but a chestnut horse got
thoroughly imbedded in the mud, and detained his rider for some
minutes, partly under him. Pursuit had ceased at or near this
point by the capture of our quarry, who ran badly after the little
affair with the yellow cur dog. A second deer, a fallow buck,
enlarged near the Ratoath road, gave us a charming gallop over

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 269

large flying fences for a few minutes, till the Dublin road tempted
him to exchange hard going for soft. Of his capture, the how or
the when, I cannot speak. A Devonshire lady and her brother
had the cream of the run, which it is to be hoped they found not
inferior to the cream of their own beautiful land, with its wild
stag-hunting and wild scenery.

On Tuesday, the 6th inst, the Meath hounds met at Somer-
ville, a place which, with the surrounding undulations of grass,
I have in previous letters attempted to place before the readers
of The Field. I have no doubt the fine sunshine of the morning
gleamed on much the same reaches of woodland and water as
when I visited it last ; that there was an equally gallant and hard-
riding field — beauty, rank, and chivalry all combined to do honour
to the cause of hunting in general, and Meath fox-hunting in
particular ; that Louth sent, as usual, a hard-riding division to the
border covert, and that the visitors who have made Navan and
various other points in Meath their head-quarters were there to
a man and a woman. But from observation I cannot speak, as,
in the first place, actuated by the laudable wish to save a hunter
four or five miles of a long road, I did not go to the trysting-
place ; and, if I must go into personalities, let me confess that
I spent a few unpleasant moments in a deep dyke partially under
my hunter yesterday, and that the process of extrication by most
kind friends on the bank was worse than the most vigorous
manipulation of the swarthy shampooer at the Hammams in
Jermyn Street, and one most hostile to early rising, which a meet
something under a score of miles distant involves.

A bad practice it is, that trying to nick in with hounds in the
afternoon. For once that it succeeds, it fails ten times ; and, if
attempted, it should be done most cautiously, if you wish your
relations with the master to remain cordial and friendly as ever.
A covert should not be approached under any circumstances, and
even a considerable margin of road should be sacrificed to any
little ambition to secure a good start or a good view of the pro-

270 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

ceedings. I am happy to say I did not offend in this respect
to-day, never having got within two miles of the hounds ; neither
did my fellow-sinners — for I was not alone in breaking the canons.
Having waited on the road half a mile or so from a gorse which is
generally visited in the afternoon of a Somerville meet, we set
forth in an opposite direction, and saw a number of very cheerful-
looking sportsmen returning homewards, all very well pleased with
the sport which the day had brought forth — no dissentients, no
grumblers. I believe the day's proceedings were somewhat on
this wise : Somerville Woods drawn first ; then the usual visit to
the neighbouring Walshe's Gorse — the inevitable find of probably
the selfsame little fox so well known for the last season or two —
the gallop over the now familiar line to Athcairne Castle, thence
on towards Ardcath Chapel (pronounced as some Cockneys would
" hard cash "), when the celebrity among foxes worked the pack
out of scent or got to ground. I hear the time was thirty-five
minutes. Kilmoon Sticks, known also as Newtown Covert — Mr.
Reynell's care — was then tried, and with the wonted success (it
is very small to the eye). The hounds, starting on capital terms
with their fox, drove him down towards Garristown Hill, when he
skirted the bog at the foot, and worked back into Newtown, where
I believe he got to ground — twenty-five minutes I hear they made
it, very fast — and over a good sound line ; though the ground in
places was naturally very holding, and one or two falls of course
resulted, as horses overdone can no more exert due leverage to
land them well on to a high bank than a ball-and-chain prisoner
could execute a hornpipe. Lord Rossmore got an ugly-looking
one, I hear, and so did Mr. Maher, a visitor ; both, however,
escaped well. These runs, though not very long, were, I hear,
very satisfying, and there were no demands for fresh draws and
fresh foxes. The day was glorious up to three or four o'clock ;
those who had long rides home had the customary rain accom-
paniment to beguile the way.

The tidings from the United Hunt country (Cork) is of rain,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 271

and floods, and land half submerged. On the 2 6th ult., I hear,
they had the run of the season from Carrignavar (four miles) at
top speed, quite unchecked till their quarry got to ground in
a sewer. The next find was at Temple Michael, from which they
had a splendid hunting run of some nine miles or thereabouts,
with very few checks in its extent, Lord Fermoy, Captain and
Mr. W. Hunt being as continuously near hounds, by all accounts,
as most men.

I am in arrear in my notices of Louth and its pack ; but the
stormy season has not favoured that county of late. On the 3oth,
meeting at Hilltown, they found in the Nullah, and ran a fox
through the demesne to ground in a hole at the top of the main
earths. Finding again in " The Carnes," they forced their fox
into Hilltown, round it, and then, facing the storm, he ran by
Percival's (under Winter-grass), and on straight into the Park of
Duleek, when a burrow saved him after a good thirty-five minutes.
The day was very stormy, which may account for their not finding
again. On the 2nd inst., finding at Churchtown, and getting off
on good terms from the gorse, they pressed their fox by Prestons-
town, over Newstone and Gallows Hill into Clonbranton — twenty-
five minutes up to this, and good ; then round the gorse and the
bog till they lost him in a turf-bank. Another fox turned up at
Rathory, skirted Knockabbey, and got safely into Louth Hall.
Lisrenny furnished a third fox and lots of park-hunting.

On Saturday last the Queen's County hounds were at Cullohill.
They drew Belmount and Whitewall blank, but found at Harris-
town, and the fox, breaking at the Kyle Hill side as if Rossmore
were his aim, suddenly turned and ran straight up wind to Lisduff
(Lord Castletown's residence) ; before reaching it — in fact, when
within two hundred yards of the extensive woods — they rolled him
over after an uninterrupted forty-three minutes, the last part being
in view. Besides his regular field, Mr. Stubber had a good many
Kilkenny men out.

On Monday the pack were in the large woodlands of Bally-

272 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

kilcavan, Sir Allan Walshe's park ; they killed one fox, ran another
to ground, and had a good deal of hunting with a third, but scent
was far from serving.

On Wednesday we had an almost total cessation of rain and
storm ; the air was balmy, the clouds were high, and some blue
appeared at last in the vault of heaven. A large number took
advantage of the bright lull in the elemental war to meet the
Ward Union stag-hounds at Rathregan, a mile or two distant from
Dunboyne on the Trim road. Meath and Kildare were both well
represented. Among the visitors were Lords Langford, Ross-
more, Lieut-Colonel Forster, Mr. A. Macneil, Mr. Trotter, Mr.
Howe, Mr. M'Gerr, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Mr. and
Miss Hussey, with a strong detachment of officers belonging to
the Rifle Brigade, the Inniskillings, the 3rd Dragoon Guards,
and Staff.

The enlargement took place at the opposite side of the road
from the Bush Farm, when the deer ran a wide loop, crossed the
Ratoath road by Wilkinstown, ran over part of the Fairy House
course, then, turning in the direction of Lagore, struck out to the
right hand between Ratoath and Lagore, jumped into a by-road,
which he used for a short distance ; then, sailing over those wide
grass fields which bound the Reisk fox covert, was captured not
far from Kilbrew stick covert at a place known as the Riggans. It
was a beautiful line, the pace good, and the Seven 'miles' gallop
was done fast, as there was only one short check near Ratoath.
There was a good deal of grief, but no serious mourning, save on
the part of Mr. D'Arcy, who had the misfortune to injure a very
good hunter seriously, if not fatally ; a rising gentleman jockey, of
recent Newbridge fame, who is quite the Hope-Johnston of the
Garrison here, was also the falling one, for he was down three
times, I think, if not four; a noble Guardsman, who goes very
hard and straight, came down heavily early in the run. A second
deer was ready to be uncarted ; but there was a lack of second
horses forthcoming, and the first had generally had enough.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 273

I forget whether I have alluded to an extraordinary good run
which Mr. Preston's harriers — the Bellinter — gave a field rather
weeded out by a high wall last Monday. Without entering on
townland names, we may state that it began at the Hill of Skryne,
skirted Ross House, wound through Tara Hall, passed by
Lismullen (Sir J. Dillon's park), and ended at Cabra — one hour
and thirty-five minutes of continuous pace almost unchecked ; and
the " galloping squire," on Grand Star, was conspicuous in front.

I hear the Curraghmore hounds had a capital day last Friday
from Mount Neil, when a stout fox took them along very fast by
Ashgrove to Aglish, near which village he got to ground, after
standing up for fifty minutes. Carrigatubrid furnished two foxes,
who ran two good rings in turn, and one was killed.

Those who went to Moore Abbey last Tuesday for fox-hunting
had a long journey for nothing. A run from Moore Abbey is a
possibility, not a probability — nor are the neighbouring coverts
situated in the happiest of hunting grounds.

Friday, the gth instant, was ushered in by frost, to which suc-
ceeded a tolerably dense haze, almost amounting to fog, between
eight and ten am. The roads were unusually dry, and, if one
had not been tempted into a canter along some inviting-looking
sidings, one might possibly have arrived at one's destination (a
Meath meet) with unsullied tops ; but this cantering ground soon
dispelled all such fond illusions. Squelch, squelch ! spatter,
spatter ! There is a pond of muddy water under the slight veneer
of dry mud at top, and very soon the fair spheres of Peel, Thomas,
or Seadon look like the most thickly populated stellar region in
the celestial globe, say the Milky Way, plus a few comets and
planets thrown in.

-incedis per undas

Suppositas cespiti doloso."

My road led me from the Dunboyne neighbourhood through Dun-
shaughlin, past the historic hill of Tara, freighted with its thousand
traditions — ecclesiastical, warlike, and political; by Lismullen,

274 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

Bellihter, and Ardsallagh, where the Boyne, though not confined
to nature's embankment, had sullenly retired from the valley
which he had occupied for a long time with his encroaching tide.
Time fails me now to speak of Bective Abbey, which one passes
very soon, beautiful in its ivied ruins, or, indeed, of any other
points of interest. In a few miles more we are at Meadstown
cross-roads, evidently an important meet in popular estimation,
for the surrounding roads are choke-full of carriages, second
horsemen, cantering hacks, and all the posse of an extremely
fashionable meet. And the morning's assemblage, so far as
externals and properties are concerned, would not discredit Kirby
Gate or Trouble House — not even in the burden of leather valises
with which a score or so of very smart pad-grooms are handi-
capped. There is no railway or station near by to overflow into
Meadstown. The Garrison of Dublin were conspicuously absent.
Of the Ward Union men pur et simple there were hardly half-a-
dozen at the tryst, including the Messrs. Hone and Coppinger ; so
'tis fair to suppose that the intrinsic attractions of the fixture
brought these crowds here to-day. The strangers or visitors were
not numerous ; among them were Captain and the Hon. Mrs.
Candy, Lord A. Lennox, the Hon. Harry Bourke, the Hon. Mr.
Harbord. Captain Peter Lowe, Mr. Waldron, R.H.A., Mr.
Dundas, Captain Macaulay, Major Irwin, Captain Kearney, repre-
sented the viceregal staff. Meadstown Gorse is very silent and
secluded, and nearly always holds a fox or two ; to-day it was
empty. The next visit was to a somewhat similar covert a mile
or two distant, Philpotstown. Mrs. Young, the proprietor or pro-
prietress, lives at one side of the road, in a very pleasant-looking
parklike villa (which General Wardlaw occupied as a hunting-box
a season or two ago). Mr. and Mrs. Reynard are " at home " in a
gorse a quarter of a mile or so off the road on the opposite side.
What is more to our purpose, our fox now breaks instantaneously.
A red avalanche passes across the road I referred to, and, jumping
a sunk fence in the lawn of Philpotstown the reverse way (I did

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 275

not see a refusal or mistake at it), presses hard on the pack, who
flash on to a road, and there ended the chase in pursuit of our
first fox, which began most promisingly. We are now trotting to
Churchtown, another never-failing covert, owned, as so many of
the best in this part of Meath are, by Mr. Barnewell. Those who
lingered by the roadside coffee-housing or gossiping — nay, those
who were not very keen about the matter — lost their start, and in
very few cases ever recovered the lost distance. A small bit of
wood, well-lined I fancy, is all I could see of a fox covert here ;
but in a moment after the hounds were put in they were straining
away with burning scent on the far side. It is a race now, and no
slow one ; while, to make the unities complete, we are now on the
Boyerstown racecourse, where the Meath or Navan races are held
with much eclat every spring — large wide fences to jump, the line
all grass, but holding enough. Such is our path of pursuit ; the
fox has been running in one direction and for one point for the
last three miles or so, but never very straight ; and now he bends
by the Stand House to the left hand, and jumps into the
Navan road. A donkey cart and Mrs. Jehu scare him back, and
now he takes us along to the verge of Navan, then crosses the
railway track near a sort of Danish rath, where there was a check
of five or six minutes ; then his course and ours lies parallel to the
bed of the river Blackwater till he meets with a plantation near
Liscarton Castle, and here in a burrow he saved himself. The
distance is estimated at about seven miles. Up to the first and
only check, it was twenty-five minutes of good galloping for those
who started well with the pack — of hopeless and tumultuous
pursuit for those who failed to do so. It boots not now to tell of
the leaders, the tumblers, the beaten, the baffled, the blown (a
lady went very well) ; for we are now pushing on to Rathmore
Gorse (Lord Darnley's) — which gave them a sharp gallop only
yesterday evening — towards Allenstown. A bit of wild un'nclosed
gorse is tried en route, with the result of a quick ring which emptied
some saddles. Now we are at Rathmore proper. A find ! a false

276 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

start ! a second start, and all is well if we can get over the first
few large fences and hit the right spots in them ! A road crossed,
and then we wind over the green hill of Ward, dip down a little
valley, and surmount another green undulation, Rathcarn Hill.
Meadstown Covert is just in front of us, and the fox tries it, but is
forced to turn from it ; and now he is racing through Kilbride,
en route apparently for Tullaghnogue or Clifton Lodge. Whether
he was pulled down by the hounds or baffled them, I cannot say.
To have seen something of four chases, and trot back some twenty
miles with a heavy weight, is enough for what they call the
degenerate hunter of modern times. These hounds had a good
gallop on Monday from Headstown towards Aclare, and killed a
brace from Drewstown yesterday.

On my return home I find a post card from the hon. secretary
of the Kildare hunt, inviting me to a meeting to consider the con-
ditions on which Mr. Forbes proposes to take the management of
the county pack, and to settle the preliminaries of the annual Red
Coat Race and Hunt Ball.

Alas ! the burden of conversation to-day was generally in a
sad key — Mr. Archdale gone from us just a week; Captain
Gubbins, one of the best sportsmen of the day (who, consenu
farum, did more than receive a Victoria Cross in the harvest of
fame his gallantry won him before Sevastopol), lies grievously
hurt, and almost despaired of, by a fall from his horse ; and now
Mr. A. Macneil, so prominent a figure in the pursuits of Meath,
Kildare, and the Ward Union packs, has just met with a serious
accident from a fall also.

H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught is hunting the fox with the
Duhallow hounds. His debut was unfortunate, I hear, as he got
kicked by a lady's horse on his way to his first meet, but was not
much hurt, I am glad to say, and all will be rejoiced to hear.

On Saturday, owing very much to the Castle festivities, the
Kildare hounds had an enormous meet at Straffan Bridge, while
the congregation at Kilrue to meet the Ward Union stag-hounds is

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 277

described as almost equally plethoric. The Kildare hounds did
not find till past two o'clock, and had then a long, slow, hunting
run of an hour's duration from Bellavilla Gorse to Downing's
Covert, and some more pottering beyond it. The line lay over a
series of small inclosures, so there was a great deal of jumping
and tumbling, and all the fun of the fair.

The Ward Union hounds ran a very wide semicircle, begin-
ning at or near Kilrue, and ending at Maynooth ; and, as the
diameter cannot be less than seven miles, « the length of the
irregular circumference may be estimated at a very considerable
mileage. Indeed, in some instances, horses did not reach their
stables till the large, if not the largest hours.

As a specimen of the caprice and uncertainty of scent, I may
mention that on Thursday the Meath hounds found it at its
highest, specially round Drewstown. On Friday I thought it very
good in Meath also, though the fact of the hounds starting close to
these foxes on each occasion may have had much to say to its power.
In Western Meath, on the same day, though, foxes abounded.
At Knockdrin, Kilmaglish Gorse, the Crooked Wood, and Knock
Ion, the driving power was totally wanting, so no sport ensued ;
while Mr. George Brooke's harriers had perhaps their best day
this season. On this same Friday the scene of their pursuits — for
they killed a brace of hares — was Cool trim, Newtown, Hortlands,
and Cappagh, to some of which places I have introduced your
readers many times and oft, in writing of the Kildare fox-hounds
and their pursuits.

To the sport in the Duhallow country last week — when the
Convamore party included H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught,
Captains Fitzgerald and Colthurst, Lord Suffield, Mr. and Mrs.
Adair, and the Earl of Clonmell — I can only make a passing
allusion now. On Wednesday thirty-seven minutes without a
check, and crowned by a kill ; on Thursday a pleasant fifteen
minutes to ground ; on Saturday loyal crowds at Mallow, plenty
of foxes, and sport moderate.

278 HI BERN I A VENA TIC A.

XIX.

"The best of all ways

To lengthen our days,
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my love ! "

Dancing and Dublin — Bellavilla run — Venison and venerie —
Duhallow sport.

' ' Nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus."

LIKE Belgium's capital, Dublin gathered together on Friday night
her beauty and her chivalry, the Amphitryons being the Duke and
Duchess of Marlborough, the scene of the Terpsichorean festival
the Castle in Dublin. Needless to say that, under such auspices,
youth and pleasure meeting to chase with flying feet the happy
hours, Liddell's band discoursing " strains that could create a soul
under the ribs of death" (to use Milton's hyperbolical diction,
never less strained perhaps than here), young men and maidens,
dowagers and duennas, had what our cousins d'outre mer call
"a good old time of it." A generation or two ago, no doubt,
they understood balls and suppers, and love-making and love-
marring, just as well as we do or think we do now. But the next
day, or rather the next morning, hung heavier, I fancy, than it
does now when there seems a universal consensus that the rightest
and properest and most enjoyablest thing to do is to go forth and
do homage at the nearest shrine of Diana, no longer of the
Ephesians, but the Diana Celtica whose cultus was never more
popular than in this decade, whose high priests were never more

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 279

embarrassed with the surging crowds of fervid votaries and
pilgrims whose zeal lacks no devotion. By this preamble I mean
that, after the Castle ball of last night, there was a very general
exodus of the dancers early on Saturday in quest of a gallop,
anywhere, anywhere out of the smoke. To the earlier risers
Straffan Bridge, the fixture of the Kildare hounds at eleven
o'clock, presented irresistible attractions. The scenery and sur-
roundings of the trysting-place are very attractive. Two parks,
well timbered and rich in conifers and evergreens, the glory of our
damp climate, extend their limits to the well-known bridge which
spans one of the longest and straightest reaches of the sinuous
Liffey, into which well-furnished trees dip their branches. Straffan
House commands some charming little islets, where the green
of the laurel and the crimson of the dog-tree contrast well.
Pulsanda tcllus ! No longer with satin shoe or dainty brodequin,
but vicariously with the iron-shod hoofs of our hunters. Invitat
genialis hiems. The morning has been rough and rainy ; but by
eleven o'clock it has turned to a warm overcast day of lights and
shadows — what Beckford calls a jour de dames, when the eye is
brighter, the colour heightened by animation and excitement, and
no curdling east wind, no boisterous blasts, no fierce lights, mar the
flush of beauty, the symmetry of hair, hat, and habit, or make
veils and yashmaks necessary. For later revellers there is a very
convenient meet of the Ward Union hounds at 1.15 p.m., at one
of their most popular fixtures, very accessible from the metropolis
by road, namely, Kilrue. Our concern, however, is not with them,
but with the Kildare hounds at Straffan. Somebody told me —
a man with a look of experience and veracity on his countenance
— that thirty-five horse-boxes, including some trucks improvised
into boxes, were freighted with hunters at the King's Bridge
terminus (I tell the tale as 'twas told me, but vouch not for the
statistics), and that the soldier officers who came from Dublin to
this parade of mimic warfare numbered fifty-five. Again let me
state that I did not tell the tale of them — there may have been

28o HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

more, there may have been less ; but I am sure that the sons of
Mars, as the penny papers call them, formed a very large corps,
recruited from the Inniskillings, the Rifle Brigade, the Staff, the
yth Fusiliers, the 23rd, and I know not how many other sources,
while the Curragh and Newbridge sent a contingent of the 7th
Dragoons, led by Major Dent on his now famous grey mare, and
Captain Hanning-Lee represented the Staff of the Curragh. The
viceregal party comprised Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill,
escorted by a very full staff, among whom were Lieut. -Colonel F.
Forster, Lord Clanmorris, Captain J. M'Calmont, Captain Norris,
Captain Kearney, Captain Pratt Saunders, Captain C. Beresford.

Having spoken of the sons of Mars, I suppose I may take up
my mythological parable and say something of the daughters of
Venus, who formed a perfect galaxy at the meet, and who, if the
syntax code be generally correct that " the masculine is more
worthy than the feminine," upset pro hac vice all the rales and
canons of grammar, and made us perhaps very bad English
scholars, but most attentive students of the line of Irish beauty.
Time would fail me to do even partial justice to this subject. Let
me leave much to the imagination of the reader, merely adding
that among the ladies at the rendezvous were the Ladies Fitz-
gerald, Lady Randolph Churchill, Lady Annette La Touche,
Lady Edith Monck, the Hon. Mrs. Barton, the Hon. Miss Lawless,
Lady Alison, Mrs. Langrishe, Mrs. Davis, Miss Irwin, the Misses
Beauman, Miss O'Kellyi Miss Aylmer, Miss Kirkpatrick, Miss
Tuthill, Miss Blacker. Among the many visitors were Lord M.
Fitzgerald, Lord Oranmore, Lord Rossmore, Mr. M. Frewen,
Mr. Rose, Captain Saunders, Captain Fetherstone-H., Mr. Chap-
man, Mr. Skeffington-Smyth, the Hon. L. White, Captain Graves
Sawle, Mr. Power, Mr. Allan M'Donough, Captain the Hon. T.
Scott. We recognized most of the members of the Kildare hunt,
with the exception perhaps of Lord Clonmell, and one or two
men who are hunting with the Duhallow hounds from Convamore
(Lord Listowel's park).

m

THE LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 281

Enough of the mise en scene. Let us try and set this vast
agglomeration of mounted humanity in rapid motion if we can ;
but first we must needs find the great motor — Monsieur the Fox.
Without his presence and aroma we are playing at Hamlet sans
the prince : a motley company of Polonii, Rosencrantzes, Guilden-
sterns, and Ophelias, with no cue. Now Straffan has been most
liberal of foxes this year ; so has Lodge Park, its vis-d-vis.
To-day we explored miles of plantation and screens, including
a visit to the New Gorse, Castle Dillon, without effect, finding no
" sign " but a somewhat stale drag. All this is very serious to the
master ! The Kildare men feel the unuttered remarks of the
stranger and sojourner within their hunting gates. Some, full of
ride and thinking the glory of the day was fairly departed, in their
idlesse took to larking over such fences as came in their way.
Better, perhaps, if they had kept that jumping power in reserve !
Nous verrons. Presently the word " Bellavilla " struck the electric
chain by which we're darkly bound. Some read it " Ballycaghan,"
and read it with joy. The former was the truer version, and now
the long cortege, reaching considerably over a mile, is set in motion
for Bellavilla Gorse ; and fortunately, as 'tis four or five miles
distant, our track lies over some three miles of turf, no gates to
open, no fences to jump, most of it good if heavy galloping
ground. At last our journeyings are over; we are standing at
ease by Bellavilla Gorse, which is partially cut down, but which
still contains a vast deal of covert for foxes. For my own part,
I do not love Bellavilla Gorse : I never saw a really good run
from it. The country round it is not good or pleasant. The Liffey
forms a barrier in one direction, a canal in another. My memory
recalls sundry frigid hours when we vainly hoped a fox would
break from its recesses, but hounds had to be called off at last.
To-day none of these misadventures befell us : in five minutes
there was a find; in ten there was racing and chasing over, not
Cannobie, but Longtown Lea.

282 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

" Bad luck to the country ! the clock had struck two ;
We had found ne'er a fox in the gorses we drew ;
When each heart felt a thrill at the sound ' Gone away !'
And o'er Longtown demesne we are all making play."

Past the back of Mr. Sweetman's house, through the shrubbery,
on to the lawn before the house ; but here some evil genius
prompted a couple of dozen of us or so to essay a short cut to
a point. It would be a great short cut, ' tis true ; but between
peaty drains, trees, and I know not how many more impediments,
few got well over and into the open. Lord Rossmore cleverly got
over a small bit of dammed-up water, and found a quick exit;
most of us returned, with 10 to i against our catching the pack,
unless luck befriended us. And luck did befriend us, though we
had proved ourselves neither brave nor wise, only foolishly ven-
turesome and curious. Galloping first over the lawn, crossing
a road, and holding on up a lane, the pack turned to us ; for the
fox, pointing at first for Mount Armstrong, or peradventure the
nigher Millicent, had turned leftwards, and now we are in fairly
rapid pursuit, till we come to some ruins of what must once have
been some gentleman's residence, judging by the timber; and here
there is a momentary check. Men are riding hard, the country is
holding, the fences are ragged, and some of them rather large ;
small wonder if the falling sickness soon becomes epidemic. The
hounds have now worked steadily up a hill ; they are running again
merrily downwards towards a village, which we learn is called
Prosperous (on the lucus principle, of course). Mr. Frewen here
has a lead, and, coming to a gate, pops over it with an insouciance
bred of recent Leicestershire experiences. A noble lord, who has
been going hard, has it next, but comes down ! The third cracks
the top rail ! Strangely enough, in a field or two we come to
a quickset hedge, with a drop ; at one end of it there is a quasi
hog-backed stile, a curiosity in Ireland, which one man selects for
himself, and does neatly enough. Now we cross the Prosperous
road, and for a mile or so there is any amount of jumping for

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 283

those who like it, while the hounds are steadily picking out the
cold trail through plough and grass and small inclosures. Another
road crossed, and we are in Mr. Boyd's lands — strongly fenced
and very grief-causing. Three ladies are riding very well here —
riding well and very well carried — but Miss O'Kelly's brown
hunter is equal to any country. Soon we are on the edge of a
peat moss, sprinkled with gorse brakes. This is Downing's Covert.
The fox has not tarried here, though he has run through it, and
the hounds, quite by themselves, give hound-lovers a treat as they
hunt over the bog, noses down, till they emerge on to the upland,
and carry the line along for another half-mile; but our fox is
possibly in the Hill of Allen by this time. Our start was good,
but in the small inclosures he beat the hounds easily. An hour's
hunting, jumping and tumbling to any amount — it has not been
such a bad day after all. Mr. Franks got, I hear, rather a nasty
fall ; so did the Hon. Mr. Luke White, or rather his horse did.
Lady Randolph Churchill's horse was loose once at least, I know.
Her ladyship's early experiences of Kildare fences were rather
trying, but she got over the country most successfully. Among the
heavy weights Mr. Chapman's brown hunter and a four-year-old of
Mr. Murphy's (of Hortlands) distinguished themselves by their
jumping capacity. Lord Maurice Fitzgerald was also very well
carried.

On Monday, the i2th, a special from the Broadstone terminus
brought down a good number of men and horses to Drumree
station for the Ward Union meet at Culmullen cross-roads. Let
me state en parenthhe that Lord Rossmore and Captain and Mrs.
Candy are now occupying Culmullen Lodge as a hunting-box
(Culmullen Lodge, so well known when it was the habitat of poor
"Rufus Montgomery"), so it is needless to say that hospitality,
hunting hospitality especially, is the rule of the house. Besides
the soldiers and the Ward Union men from Dublin, a good many
faces one associates with the Meath fox-hounds were at the trysting-
place to-day — among them Lord Langford, Lord A. Lennox, Mr.

284 HIBERNIA VJENATICA.

Trotter, the Hon. Harry Bourke, Lord Rossmore, Mr. A. Nugent,
Captain Peter Low, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Mr.
M'Gerr, Mr. Rose, Messrs. Hone, Butler, and Waldron, etc. The
deer, an untried novice, was uncarted — or, let me say, " enlarged,"
for it sounds prettier — in a large field near the house, when,
instead of taking to the now familiar track by Cultromer, Piper's
Hill, and Batterstown, she skirted Culmullen offices, and, heading
apparently for Woodtown, turned slightly, and ran by Beltrasna
Gorse — actually, I believe, going through a bit of it. Here I am
told, for I was not in a position to see the proceedings myself,
there was a slight dwell, and a few hounds went away with the line
in front of the pack. One hard-riding man thought he had quite
pack enough, and galloped on with this two couple. Certain
other ambitious spirits set all sail to catch their leader. The great
body of the field and the pack were, of course, condemned to a
stern chase, and a far slower one than it would have been but for
these contretemps. From Beltrasna the track lay over a splendid
bit of country by Kilmore, to the verge of Larch Hill, and thence
to Garradice, where the capture was effected. The deer suc-
cumbed, though apparently uninjured when taken, and so the
pack were treated to the rare luxury of venison au naturd, to
which I feel sure they added a sauce ires piquante. A fine gallop
of thirty minutes, it might have been something better but for the
cause I have mentioned. A second deer was not enlarged, on
account of the accident to No. i.

In sending you last week a sketch of a very long run which
this pack had by Ratoath, Culmullen, the Hatchet, and so on to
Maynooth, I should have stated that the hounds were stopped
from further pursuit at 5.30 p.m. at the latter place, though the
deer by all accounts was full of running still, and had a great start
of her enemies at that late hour. She was left out perforce, and
some spirited hunting passages may be expected in the efforts to
recover her.

The sequel, or rather the conclusion, of Friday's second run in

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 285

Meath, which I sent you, was somehow on this wise : After passing
Rathcarne, where a very good welter-weight blocked one of two
available spots in a rugged double, the fox ran to the verge of
Meadstown, then, passing Kilbride, made Tullaghnogue Covert,
whence he was hustled out in twelve or fifteen minutes, and then
his course lay back to Meadstown ; but hounds were stopped at
this point. The run must have been nearly twelve miles over
grass, and the first part was very fast ; one horse, I know, died of
exhaustion. The Hon. Mrs. Candy was well up at the finish. It
was a splendid day's sport certainly.

The treeing fox is not common in Ireland, and in most polled
oaks or ashes you would be as likely to meet a Carolus Rex as
a fox, though old ivied ruins are affected by wise vulps occasionally.
In some parts of Gloucestershire so common a fox-haunt is a
polled ash or willow, when well furnished with ivy, that no hunts-
man passes such a tree by without some investigation or cracking
of whip under it. At Ballymacoll, in the County Meath, there is
a very matted bit of ivy in the lawn, where a fox haunted regularly
up to last season, his lair being as well known by the neighbours
as the railway station. Why he has forsaken his home is not
known generally. Perhaps Mr. Vulp preferred a basement to the
more elevated position ; perhaps change of scene became desirable
for many reasons.

" Heigho, the wind and the rain ! " Blowing great guns at
night, raining torrents by day — such was the outlook on Tuesday,
the i3th, when we were meditating about setting off for the Meath
meet at Dunshaughlin. Methinks a few will sing "Heigh nonino!"
for it is coming down in small bucketfuls, and the western horizon
is black with rain. No ! we have not degenerated from our fellows
of Tarporley, of whom the Laureate sings —

" Holding together, sir,
Scorning the weather, sir,
Like the good leather, sir,
Which we put on. "

286 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Dunshaughlin reached, we find between one and two hundred
sportsmen, and a few sportswomen too, awaiting the advent of the
pack, who now top the hill, and are presently huddled together by
Mr. Kelly's small hostelry, while waterproofed forms emerge from
stables and all sorts of sheltering nooks, and in a few minutes a
large cavalcade is in motion down the well-known lane leading to
the Poor-house Gorse. Here we are amid wide green fields,
divided from each other by single banks protected by a quasi
moat. The gorse occupies a field in front, and, by Jove, 'tis a
find ! There he goes — a small fox ! Goodall has some five or six
couples of hounds with him ; the rest have found another, and are
hustling him about. The first fence is such as I have described,
and in a second five men are " moated ; " a few get over, not a
few decline. It is only a couple of hundred yards to go round,
and the pack are checking already. On to Parsonstown Manor —
no ! 'tis back towards Lagore. You can get there by gaps and
gate with hardly a jump ; you can have a few chasms en route
if you please. Some did please. We have a sprinkling of
" customers " out whom big things don't daunt Mr. Trotter
cares little what country he meets; Mr. Frewen is out on a fine
bold hunter, whom I noticed recently in Lord Oranmore's posses-
sion; Captain Norris hails from the Pytchley; Lord Randolph
Churchill is here straight from the Heythrop, dear to under-
graduates ; Messrs. Coppinger, Murland, Meldon, Hone, Turbitt,
and a few more confront weekly the biggest country in these
islands ; the Hon. Harry Bourke loves width when associated
with pace ; while large fencing, of any sort or kind, is simply
second nature to Lord Langford, Lord A. Lennox, Lord Ross-
more, and Messrs. Candy, Harbord, Butler, etc. In Lagore
plantations there is some delay, followed by a second excursion to
our starting-point ; then we visited Lagore again, once more slide
into a brook and creep up the far side, jump into the Ratoath
road, and now it looks like a run at last. A drop over a brook
into a road, which was not nice for heavily burdened horses ; then

HIBERNIA VENA 2 1C A. 287

a check ; then on it goes to another Dunshaughlin covert (a rood
or two of plantation, with some shrubs and gorse) ; then exit — for
I forget what time — to Lagore ; then who-whoop ! who- whoop !
Not a very bold fox, and one much given to sentry-like rounds ;
but the country must have been almost as daunting to him as to
our horses, and horses did fall like ninepins ; for, though we were
never off grass, the going was like a tenacious slough. Who looks
at a watch in such weather ? so I can't tell you the time. I should
think they hunted him for more than an hour ere they killed.

Lagore is the hospitable mansion of Mr. Thunder, and thither
his sons bid the field, a call which not a few soaked mortals obeyed
with alacrity. We are now en route to the Reisk Gorse. The
mendacious glass, which has been rising for some time, now finds
fulfilment of its augury : the rain ceases. The find and departure
here is an affair of less than two minutes. Scent seems burning
as the pack race after their leaders over very large grass fields,
well gated, where, with the pull of the hill in your favour, you may
send your horse along at best pace for a mile or more. Kilbrew
Sticks is left on the hand of that name. We have got over the
brook by a bridge. The hounds seem to dwell a bit in the covert;
one single hound racing, and Mr. Trotter trying in vain to turn
him, is what we see when we emerge from a small plantation.
The hound is right ; the' pack stream after him. For a mile or
two we have a good gallop, with lots of flying fences, till we get
into Green Park. There is no detention worthy of mention here,
among the shrubs and plantations ; a minute or two at most,
then on we go to Corbalton Hall, about a mile distant — a very
stiff mile too ; and here I left the hounds very busy with what
I should imagine was a tired and beaten fox, for the woodlands
and plantations are extensive. Considering the weather, the sport
was very good; hounds worked admirably. The strangers from
different hunts laud Meath and its grasseries (pray pardon the
coinage), but think mostly that its fences are over-big. Perhaps
a few natives concur in this estimate !

288 HIBERN1A YEN A TIC A.

The pack had, I hear, a very smart gallop yesterday afternoon
over a stiff line, after a moderate morning, from Shancarn to the
Mullagh, almost a repetition of the extraordinary run of their
opening day.

The hunting chronicle of the Duhallow pack, during H.R.H.
the Duke of Connaught's visit to Convamore, runs somewhat in
this fashion : Monday's meet was transferred to Wednesday to
suit the programme, and it turned out very wet. Killalty Gorse,
and Killalty Rock, close by, were foxless for a wonder ; but in, or
rather near, Lisnagourneen a fox was viewed stealing away. He
ran a nice line for a bit (very much the same as he had travelled
ten days before), then turned towards Glanworth, and was rolled
over; thirty-five minutes of very good uninterrupted hunting,
which I hear the Convamore party saw rather better than the rest
of the field. His Royal Highness's mishap on the way has been
already mentioned. Lunch followed at Mr. Welstead's, Baily-
walton.

On the next day, they began by finding a brace of foxes at
Clonee, one of whom they sent to ground in the direction of
Sallylease, without much sport. Kilborehirt, the next covert
tried, was surrounded by the loyal sons of the soil, whose zeal
rather interfered with the hunting. A good fifteen minutes to
ground under a road was the result, when the fox of the place was
permitted to break into the open. Ballybane supplied a third fox,
but his career was not very brilliant or exciting.

On Saturday Mallow was the meeting-place, and a levee en
masse greeted the Duke. The Poor-house Gorse furnished nothing
better than a stale drag. While moving to the second draw, a fox
jumped up out of a hedgerow, was run to ground, dug out, and
killed. While the pack were breaking him up, a second was
tallied away. The hounds were clapped on him instantly, but
made next to nothing of him, nor of another vulp found in
Rosheen, who ran towards Longueville, Mr. Longfield's residence.

The Ward Union hounds met at Flat House on Thursday, the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 289

1 5th (Wednesday, their usual meeting day, having been changed,
we will suppose, in deference to Mother Church), and a soldiers'
drag, with carts and carriages of all sorts, made the uninteresting
spot wear for the nonce a joyous and festive aspect, to which a
very pleasant, cheerful day added no slight assistance. Trotting
across the railway track, with Norman's Grove on the right hand,
we came to the enlarging field, and then the steeplechase — for it
was one — began at fine pace, with a plentiful allowance of large
ditching, which included the Caulstown Brook and a very large
half-dry ditch near Loughlinstown, over which a few horses made
tremendous springs (in the native tongue, " threw heavy leps "),
while some more discreet slided down into the bottom and got
up the far side with a half-jump, half-scramble. Through Har-
bourstown the line leads towards Ratoath, across the high-road,
and thence on to Ashbourne. The deer being viewed now, for a
short distance the green fields (tenacious and holding they were,
too) are exchanged for a sound road. Greenoge is sighted, a turn
back towards Ashbourne, and a capture effected. Such is a mere
sketch of a magnificent pursuit over a grass vale second to none
within my experience, and till Ballyhack was reached there was
neither pause nor dwell in the continuous pace. Lords Langford
and Rossmore, I fancy, saw the hounds from a good position all
through, and so did Mr. Trotter. I haven't heard what the
Kildare hounds did on Monday last On Tuesday — watery Tues-
day— the glorious uncertainties (or certainties) of the Irish turf
(cum banks) were being exemplified on Halverstown hillside. On
Wednesday (day of ashes) they met at Saggart ; were near a good
run from Tallaght, but missed it ; and found foxes galore in Johns-
town Kennedy.

The Wexford hounds have had a very good season. Let me
illustrate the assertion by the evidence of one or two days. On
the 22nd ult. they met at the kennels, and found in the Ringwood,
the fox sweeping past the kennels, over the hill by Moneyhore,
Clohass, Scobie Church, and Daphneyhill, into the fair green of

2 90 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Enniscorthy, where a horse mart was being held — a famous oppor-
tunity to prove, what every owner of a likely horse was prepared
to swear by the shades of his ancestors, that said horse or colt
was the best-lepped horse in Ireland. Many joined the ranks of
pursuit here. The fox now bent to the left, and ran rather a back
track, but failed to beat his enemies, who rolled him over after
one hour and twenty minutes of capital hunting.

The 26th is said to have been the best scenting 'day of the
season in Wexford. From Courtnacuddy Wood they ran a fox
straight into Castleboro'. Their second they found in Killoughran
Wood, and the pack, getting off on the best of terms with him, ran
him a hard ring by the Chapel of Carne, thence across the large
fields towards Ballyhyland, which he skirted, and then turned for
Woodbrook; but he was beginning to feel the severity of the
pace, so he turned again, spurted past Ballyhyland Lawn, hoping
to gain the earths at Warren's Gorse, but they were closed. He
had made his final effort, and the pack were on him. Fifty-three
minutes, very good and continuous. This was followed on the
29th by a very fine hunting run from Mr. Maher's New Gorse,
while on the i2th inst. they had thirty rare good minutes in the
teeth of a strong wind, running from scent to view. On Tuesday
the Curraghmore hounds, with whose master his Royal Highness
is now staying, met at Guilco cross-roads, and seem to have had a
very fine ring from Rathgormac, described as a dozen miles done
in one hour and twenty-five minutes ! We have had a Leicester-
shire man over here during the past ten days, and I much regret
that the sport he has seen has not been first-class by any means —
hardly second-rate — as he is quite as much at home in Ireland as
in the shires of the Saxon, coming up very nearly to the Cheshire
poet's ideal man, " to whom nought came amiss." In a run the
other day he managed to sound the depths of a river, and in going
to his station he was accosted by a native, who remarked, " Faith
ye were in a river, and they're very wet this season ! "

The Kilkenny hounds have had a busy week of it, beginning

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 291

at Desart on Monday, when they killed, after a pursuit of three
hours. On Wednesday, the yth, they were at Castle Morris,
where a fine extensive park and handsome modern house give
beauty to a whole hill slope. In Bullaglass, a covert of Lord
Bessborough's, a very stout fox turned up, who, without any very
straight impulse, kept the pack at work between Wynne's Gorse,
Owning's, the Slate Quarries, and Castle Morris for upwards of
two hours.

On Friday, meeting at Foyle Bridge, they first sent a fox from
Ballyspellan to ground, then drew the Rock, and had a capital
and very long half-ring from it, through Aharney, Ballyspellan,
and Gathertown, etc., the pack running into their fox in the open
before he was able to complete it. The time was one hour and
thirty minutes ; the line very good.

The Westmeath hounds had a good run from Gaulston Park
on Tuesday, the track leading by the Grove towards Violetstown
and Clonmoyle, through Catherinestown and Gurteen into Gay-
brook, where fresh foxes turned up ; but the hounds kept to their
own, hunted him by Dunbodin and Carrick, till he got to ground
in Skreen.

The Kildare hounds had a great deal of hunting and a long
run, which improved towards its close, from Nine-tree Hill Gorse
on Thursday, when they met at Athy.

Sir David Roche's pack had a fine pursuit from Ballycummin
on Friday, the Qth, beating the field into Cahirconlish, about eight
miles. Sir David, to the regret of the country, has sent in his
resignation.

The Meath hounds were at Larracor on Friday, and, finding
instantly at Moneymore Gorse, ran a fox over a charming line
towards Tobercur, when he was headed and got to ground.
Rahinstown found them a fox, but could not give scent to drive
him withal ; while in Garradice they found their third fox, and
had a fine hunting run, with fast bits in it. They had a fast gallop
from Headfort through Kilmainham to Blomesbury on Thursday
in which the hounds were quite alone.

292 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

It is satisfactory to be able to report many of the wounded in
our mimic warfare as convalescent. Lord Howth is riding again ;
Mr. Morrogh is driving about ; Mr. Macneil, who put out his hip
joint about a week ago, is going on very well, though in bed still
— his stud will be in the market very soon, well-bred powerful
horses, accustomed to go straight and fast, one or two of them
extra good performers over water, and I hear over timber too, but
of the latter accomplishment I can only speak by hearsay, oppor-
tunities for gaining this distinction are so rare in Ireland. Another
sportsman, very well known in Meath and Kildare, has just passed
away — Dr. Wade, the owner and breeder of many good horses in
his time. Martha was, perhaps, the best known of his recent lot.

I think I mentioned the fact of the Duke of Connaught's
being a visitor at Curraghmore, and hunting with that splendid
pack of fox-hounds, one of whose highest praises is the competi-
tion in good kennels for their drafts. Let me here give an
epitome of their sport last week. i3th February, meeting at
Guilco cross-roads, they got on to a fox, who did not await a
ceremonious draw, but raced away for the mountain of Crughorne,
where he got into the rocky fissures ; twenty-two minutes at top
speed, most men down. The Duke was well carried by a horse
of Lord Waterford's — Anchor. A second fox was found at Bally-
neal, who ran to the same mountain refuge, which cannot be
thoroughly stopped ; eighteen minutes, with burning scent.
Anchor again bore his Royal Highness in the van. The third fox
turned up in Rathgormac, pointing for Curraghmore ; but, headed,
he made for Carrick Wood, running a splendid line of grass ; then
swung to the left, and, crossing the Milvale river, brushed through
the Churchtown plantations, trying hard to make Gurteen; but,
finding his powers failing fast, he turned back for Coolnamuck,
and got into Rathgormac again, when he crept into a rabbit hole
a very short distance in front of the pack. Six only finished this
splendid circuit of eleven miles, which was done very little over
the hour — namely, Lord Waterford, Mr. Mansfield (who had a

HIBERN1A VENA TIC A. 293

front place all through, I hear), the huntsman and first whip,
Mr. Me.nce, and a farmer. The Duke, mounted on what I call
the Kearsley roan, saw the run well up to Churchtown. On the
1 5th they met at Dangan Bridge in storm and rain, which, how-
ever, did not prevent an enormous field from coming thither. A
long trot partly across country brought them to Knockbrack, the
Duke of Connaught getting a rather nasty fall at a wall, from his
horse landing on a flag. A fox broke from here handsomely, but
was headed back, when he tried the open the second time. Duke
had eighteen couple of his bitches unpleasantly near his brush,
and- the result was an extremely fast scurry of twenty minutes to
Bally varon, where he got to ground in a drain under the road. A
fox was chopped at Tory Hill, and the storm after that dispersed
every one homewards.

The 1 6th saw them at Mountain Grove, and presently trying
Carrick Truss, whence a greyhound fox sallied forth at once,
pointing for Killeen, and gaining a few precious seconds at the
start; from Killeen he bent in the direction of Castle Morris
(Kilkenny county), and it was a race to it for hounds and horses
for about five miles. He ran right through the woods here to
make Wynn's Gorse, but, strength failing, he swung down into the
vale, and was rolled over in the open — in fact, in the middle of a
large grass field — at Harristown, after an hour and twenty minutes
over thirteen miles of continuous • and light grass. Eighteen
couple of hounds started in this splendid chase ; seventeen and a
half broke up their fox, one having been ridden over. The Duke
of Connaught was again carried to the front by Anchor, and saw
the finish well. Thirty-nine and a half brace of foxes have been
killed by this triumphant pack, and not one dug out since the
cub-hunting. Needless to say, H.R.H. was enthusiastically re-
ceived by all classes. His popularity in Ireland was hereditary,
it is now personal.

Sport in Louth, too, has been first-class. I can only glance at
it now. Thes'e are the plums of the pie : An hour and seven

294 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

minutes from Charleville on Monday, the 5th. On the loth, after
much wood-hunting at Cabra, a capital fifty minutes from Lis-
naboe. On the i3th, three-quarters of an hour very fast from
Bragganstown Gorse to the town of Ardee. On the i6th, a very
long circular hunting run from Glenmore, by Flattens, Donore,
Duleek, Rathmullen, back to Glenmore, two hours and fifteen
minutes in all. On the 8th the pack had the narrowest of escapes
as they were pursuing along the Northern line.

The Ward Union hounds had a singularly fine run on Wednes-
day over a perfect grass line of upwards of thirteen miles. I can
only allude to it en passant now.

H1BERNIA VENATICA. 295

XX.

"The earths are open : will he reach the cover?
Who-whoop ! he sinks exhausted ; all is over !

Larracor — Fine evening run from Pratt's Gorse — "Laragh" — Kill near
Killakee— A field squandered.

FRIDAY, the i6th of February, made its advent in white rime and
some little congelation of the plasters of mud and clay which the
recent open weather had spread about most liberally. By nine
o'clock, or a little after, with the evil omen of a very vivid rain-
bow, down came the rain and sleet with a will, and so cold that
snow seemed about to succeed very quickly. However, after one
outburst of the sleet and rain, the sun shone forth, the clouds
disappeared, the horizon extended, and for seven hours we had
the treat and novelty of a gloriously fine day, with a bite and sting
in the air all the time, which might, or might not, bode the most
burning scent or its total absence, for in such temperature there is
seldom any medium.

The meeting-point of the Meath hounds was Larracor, by the
cross-roads, one of which leads to the small church and parsonage
which the genius of Swift has immortalized, and the presence of
Esther Johnson (Stella) has embalmed in the romantic passages
of Irish story. Coming down Braemount Hill, the fine valley of
the Boyne seemed spread out before one, and the turreted Trim,
with its chain of castles and fortalices carrying one back to the
Plantagenet times, did not seem more than a mile distant, though

296 HI BERN I A VENA TIC A.

really, I believe, a good deal further off. It was my case to have
ridden a long distance to the meeting-point, and the severity of
the earlier hours probably made me hurry over those long, weary
Irish miles at better pace than usual, for I found myself the first
in the field, with ample leisure to survey a large troop of as neat
and well-appointed pad-grooms and second horsemen as any pack
within my experience can show. Here are two fine capital weight-
carriers sent on by Lieut.-Colonel Fraser for Lord Sufneld. Lord
Howth's second horseman is here — a good omen, as his lordship
has been compelled to be an absentee for some weeks now, owing
to strains from a severe fall. Two fine, powerful horses, belong-
ing to Mr. Brown, of Elm Grove, catch the eye at once — a bay
and a chestnut ; Lords Rossmore, Langford, and Captain Candy's
hunters will bear full inspection and criticism ; so will the Hon.
H. Bourke's, Major-General Herbert's, and Mr. Trotter's. But
time is up ; the master's cart and the well-known chestnut pull
up ; ten minutes is devoted to the day's programme, the exchange
of news, and gossip. Then, late or early, punctual or tardy, no
more time is given, and something like a hundred or a hundred
and thirty mounted men, a few carriages, and half-a-dozen ladies
are set in motion by the mot cTordrc of Mr. Waller — "Moneymore."
I should think it was a short mile from the assembling-place, a
natural gorse, apparently assisted much by care and inclosure.
While the pack are busy questing about, let us glance at our
entourage. The usual Meath men are here in fair force ; some
Ward Union pursuers have thrown in their lot with fox-hunting
to-day ; from Kildare come Mr. Forbes, the master-elect, Captain
Davis, Mr. Maher, and one or two more ; while a young lady,
who went remarkably well last Meadstown day, Miss Colgan,
appears to be piloted by the last-named gentleman, who seldom
rides a bad hunter. Captain Kearney represents the Castle staff;
Lord Suffield, expected, does not turn up, but the Hon. Mr.
Harbord, his son, is to the fore.

The hounds have found. There seems a scent in covert ; a

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 297

hat is raised. There he goes over a fine old grass pasture which
rides as firm and strong and consistent as a payement, which in
these times of slough and slush is a rare delight and joy. A
comparative stranger to this part of royal Meath, I cannot pre-
sume to say where our little red rover is bound ; for all I know
is that, after a field or two of nice galloping, we turned to the left
and met a large double — really a model fence, and such 'as you
would choose to break a colt over. But, whether the taking-off
was soft, or men hit upon bad spots, there were flashes of legs
and arms in the air, empty saddles, Lords and Commons on the
bank or in the ditch ! Another bank follows presently ; it is not
so formidable as the first, but it leads to certain curiosities in
horse attitudes worth a study. People have now shaken into
their places. There seems a green perspective in front, when the
hounds throw up their heads ! The fox has been apparently
headed at a staked gap by a herdsman, and has gone to ground
in a burrow in the middle of a large field. Tobercur is the
place's name, I hear. Moneymore is so good a gorse that we
go back there on the off chance of a second find, but in vain ;
and now we are passing the extensive park and square ruins of
Dangan Castle, the ancient manorial seat of the Wellesleys, and,
turning down a lane-way, find ourselves presently at the Bullring
Covert, consisting of two or three little well-gorsed hillocks, with
some rather swampy land under them. The hounds take pos-
session of the hill ; we maunder about through the swamps.
There is no tauromachy, but the conjugation of the verb iriirTia is
thoroughly illustrated in every mood and tense ; for there are
some two or three well-known fences — doubles, guarded by full
ditches on either side — which must be got over if our motto be
old Blucher's, "vorwarts!" Harden your heart, my noble
sportsman ; vacillate not, nor waver ; you will certainly get over
or in ; why not tempt your fate early, ere the banks become more
rotten and more greasy by the wear of many scores of hoofs ?
The fences are contemptible to look at ; but anything is serious

*
298 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

when the take-off is more than doubtful. The most conspicuous
victim within my purview was a very smart second horseman,
who got two baths in about as many minutes ; the first time you
saw a cockade flash in the light, then a column of water, that
Trafalgar Square might be proud of, rising from the base of
displacement ! The first lot of men over got on a knoll, and
formed a critical galley of onlookers, till it really became an
ordeal to face, specially with a baulking horse. We are now by
Rahinstown (Rainstown by pronunciation) Gorse, a sure find,
judging by past experiences. To-day 'tis sure and quick ; and
even on this light land scent seems to be blazing, as the pack, led
by a very neat Belvoir-like hound, Playmate, dash down a large,
newly laid-down bit of grass, and top a hill, disappearing over a
big bank. It is catchy, however ; for after another field they are
at fault, and Goodall brings them back to the bottom of the hill,
and hits off the clue very happily. It leads on first by the edge
of a wood, then across it to the Summerhill road, then follows a
slow drag into the Bullring Gorse, with a repetition of the
identical fences, and much the same scenic tableaux. Here we
lost our fox, and trotted on to Summerhill in quest of another ;
but the main woods were being thinned, I believe, so we only drew
one covert without result, and here we are en route to Garradice
or Pratt's Gorse, a very thick fox-haunt, and one which takes
much drawing, small as it looks. The find is immediate ; the
exit is not quite so quick. Our field is now reduced to some
forty or fifty, and at the telegraphic "Gone away !" every one sets
off, best pace, towards Summerhill ; but in a very few minutes a
greasy double has compelled a considerable slacking of speed
and steam. The fox has turned towards Larch Hill, run through
a portion of it, and then walked back to the gorse he came from.
The latter part and any further sequence I did not see, having
found the practicable spot in a large quick fence blocked up by
the hunter of a hard-riding Saxon — his third fall, I think, that
day — and not caring to go a considerable round at this late hour.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 299

But I should have gone round ; purblind mortals that we are, how
can we forecast the ways of' foxes, and the eventualities of a run
which may appear to open most unpromisingly in its earlier
chapters ? It would appear that our little division went too far
to the right, and that the fence I have alluded to was simply a
field beyond the legitimate course. Hence these tears ! The
fox only skirted Larch Hill, then ran by the edge of the canal
for some distance, crossed it somewhere near Ferns Lock, and
raced away at the far side over a perfect line of vale country, till
he had well-nigh reached Ballycaghan Gorse (the Kildare fox
covert). Headed here by a hedger, as I am told, he turned back,
recrossed the canal, making his way over the grassy reaches of
Dollanstown and Drumlargan, by Pratt's Gorse, till he got once
more into Larch Hill ; and when hounds were stopped, owing to
the very late hour and fading daylight, he was holding on for the
Mullagh Hill, en route probably to Culmullen. One hard-riding
man, who persevered to the sweet end, assured me it was about
the best thing he had seen this season. The field at the com-
mencement of it was very much reduced from its morning volume ;
by the wind-up it was very small and select. Among the stayers
were Lords Langford and Rossmore, Mr. Trotter, Mr. Forbes,
Mr. Purdon, Mr. Dunne, and, I think, Captain Candy. I hear
the timers made the run one hour and a half; slow on the whole,
but with fast bits throughout.

On Saturday, the i7th, to pursue our chronicle, the Kildare
hounds met at Donadea Court House. It is the portal to a very
fine country, but not particularly convenient for railway travellers,
as it is some five or six miles, if not more, from either Sallins or
Kilcock stations, the best ways of getting thither from Dublin
or Westmeath. A dripping night preluded a most lovely day —
grey and overshadowed, and not too gaudy to hope for splendid
results in the way of sport. What was the sequel of great expec-
tations my tale will unfold presently. I said it was a lovely day,
with a sense of spring and change and life in every pulse of the

3oo HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

mild air, in every note of the musicians of the grove, thicket,
and hedgerow. The ladies evidently thought it so, for they
mustered in very great numbers, and stayed out till the finish,
enjoying the rare climatic luxuries with great apparent zest ; they
nearly formed a small field in themselves. Besides the regular
Kildare people, the visiting list comprised Lords Langford and
Rossmore, Captain Candy, Mr. Fowler of Rahinstown, Messrs.
Hone, Purdon, Dunne, Chapman, and M'Gerr, from Meath ; from
Dublin came Lieut. -Colonel Forster, Captain Lascelles, Mr. Usher
Roberts, Mr. Davis, the Hon. L. White, Mr. Cross, and Mr.
Wade Prosser; from Newbridge appeared Major Dent and some
officers of the 7th Dragoons, Captain Hanning-Lee, A.D.C.,
Mr. Knox, R.H.A., and one or two brother officers. No fox
appeared in Donadea or Mount Armstrong, and stony roads had
to be trotted over for not a few miles till Cappagh was reached.
Scent, judging by the melodious symphonies of the pack, was
very good, but it mattered little to the hard-riding division out.
Who-whoop ! who-whoop ! and the tenant of Cappagh Gorse is
becoming incorporate with the Kildare pack. Ballycaghan Gorse
remains, in all its extent and certainty of holding. Alas ! the
long line drawn up at a respectful distance learns in twenty
minutes or so from the bugle call that another fox has paid the
penalty of lingering too long in his gorsy home. Courtown has
been staunch in holding foxes this season, but Courtown has no
vulp life within it to-day ! I did not wait to see Painstown
run through, as from its limits it must be a very uncertain
haunt.

On Monday, the igth, the Ward Union stag-hounds, reached
by a special train from the Broadstone terminus, attracted a fair
field to Batterstown station. As bad luck would have it, some
repairs were going on here, which necessitated a move for the
horse-boxes on to Drumree station, a couple of miles further down
the line. To meet the situation, the deer of the day was enlarged
about a mile from Culmullen House, which gave all time to

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 301

assemble. A beautiful grass country faced us, but the deer had
been coursed ; so her track was most devious till we crossed
"the Hatchet" road by Ribstone, then it was straight through
Ballymaglasson to Baytown Park, thence in view to Vesington,
where the capture was made. The run was in a downpour of
rain, to which succeeded a wind and rain storm, as predicted
by the meteorologists in New York and telegraphed as coming.

I had not space to do justice, or even to epitomize, a few days
of fine sport recently shown by the Louth hounds in my last letter.
Let me now give a. precis of their performances.

On the 5th they were at Barmeath, found at once, and sent a
fox to an unknown sewer in the park. From Charleville a fox
was taken very fast for fifty minutes by Dunbar and Dromina into
Painstown, where he was dead beat; but Mr. Filgate was un-
willing to kill in the covert, so he gave the fox a vStart, which he
used to good purpose in getting to the open earths at Rathaskar.
One hour and seven minutes in all.

On the 8th, after killing a fox at Harbourstown, they got well
away with another by Snowtown, hunting him for forty-five minutes
by Naul and Stedalt. From Gormanstown, where several foxes
were on foot together, one took to the metals, with hounds in
pursuit ; a train was following in their wake. The situation was
awful for a huntsman and master, but no bad result followed.

On the loth they were at Collon, put a fox to ground, then
had a lot of woodland work for an hour, and a ring in the open
with another. From Lisnaboe they ran a fox very hard for fifty
minutes, but had to whip off on Meath Hill at five o'clock p.m.

On the 1 3th, meeting at Mansfieldstown, they visited Brag-
ganstown, where a lively fox started off before the pack, running
by the Clyde river to Mapastown, and then, turning to the left,
into Guddestown Gorse, where he did not hang a moment, but,
passing over Roodstown Hill, crossed the river Dee, held on
through Stakillen, and just beat the pack to ground in the old
mount behind the town : forty- five minutes, extremely good.

V

302 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

A brace turned up in Drumcashel, and the day wound up with a
racing fifteen minutes and a kill from Lisrenny, scent serving very
well.

On the 1 6th they were at Glenmore, where they found a good
starter, who ran a circuit by Flattens to Kearn's Glen and back.
His next excursion was the White Mountain by Duleek, over the
rails by Caulstown and Peamore to the station at Drogheda ; next
followed a long check at Ball's Grove, and then the chase led by
Rathmullen into Old Bridge, back to Glenmore, where a friendly
hand probably let him in. Two hours and fifteen minutes.

On Tuesday, the 2oth, the Kildare hounds — who began the
week rather infelicitously at Eagle Hill yesterday, finding a fair
sprinkling of foxes all round Martinstovvn, but no driving power
to make them dash into the open for dear life's sake — met at >_
Naas, the ancient capital (so says venerable tradition) of the kings
of Leinster. To-day it was turned into a quasi-alfresco durbar, 1
to meet the hounds 'tis true, but also to meet H.R.H. the Duke
of Connaught, who was coming, so said fame, from Moore Abbey, |
Lord Drogheda's residence, for this rendezvous. Naas and its ?
neighbouring meets have proved, so far as my experience this *
season goes, very faithful conductors of rain, hail, sleet, snow,
storm, and tempest, and all things most inimical to hunting and
hunting men and horses. I can hardly recall an exception or
extenuating circumstance to this grave atmospheric indictment ;
and, to engrave the facts more permanently in my memory, it was
my lot on every occasion to have to ride or drive the best part of
a score of miles to the trysting-place.

The night 6f the igth was fearfully stormy and wet, and I fear
will be sadly calendered in many memories of sea-faring folk on
our coasts. Even on land, there was a certain amount of flotsam
and jetsam strewed about roads and fields, in the shape of trees
blown down and branches snapped off by the violence of the
gale. At eight o'clock on the morning of the 2oth everything was
very still and serene, though bitterly cold, and there was every

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 303

prospect of a dry, bracing day. In an hour or two everything
changed. A biting wind from the north-west drove discharges
of rain first, then sleet, then a combination of sleet, snow, and
hail on the wayfarer, who was fortunate indeed if he were not his
own coachman. The meet of the county pack was advertised for
11.30 to enable railway people from Dublin, Carlow, and the
Queen's County to arrive in time ; the state of the weather and
these intermittent tempests made it well-nigh noon ere the caval-
cade formed opposite the Royal Hotel into a sort of procession
en route to Osberstown Gorse, about a mile to the westward. It
was no small one, maugre the inclemency of the skies and the
piercing, marrow-chilling cold. Ladies ! They braved it in right
womanly fashion in pony-carriages and on horseback, and I can
aver that some provincial packs would think they had a fine field
out in the amazoned squadron alone. Among them were Mrs.
Tynte and Miss Tynte, Mrs. Moore and Miss Moore, the Countess
of Huntingdon, the Hon. Miss Lawless, the Misses Beauman,
Mrs. Langrishe, Mrs. Falkiner, Miss De Robeck, Miss Pratt,
Miss Kilbee, Mrs. Bagot, Miss O'Kelly, the Misses Owen, Mrs.
Lukin ; while driving were Lady Annette La Touche, Mrs. Wake-
field, Lady Maria Fitzclarence, Miss Burton and party, Lady
Margaret Bourke, and Mrs. Ward Bennett. Among the many
visitors were H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, the Earl of Hun-
tingdon, the Hon. B. Fitzpatrick, Major Billington, Captains
Bloomfield, Mills, Ward Bennett, Ellis, and one or two more
Inniskillings ; Mr. Wardrop and officers of the 3rd Dragoon
Guards ; Major Dent, Captains Day, George, Brooke, and others
of the 7th Dragoons ; Mr. Knox, Mr. Hibberd, and other Horse
Artillerymen; Captains Hanning-Lee, Graves Sawle, and J.
M'Calmont, A.D.C., Captain the Hon. T. Scott and officers of
the Rifle Brigade, and Captain G. Fitzclarence, R.N. From the
Queen's County came Mr. J. G. Adair, Mr. Skeffington Smyth,
and Mr. Webber ; from Dublin, Mr. Power and Mr. Rose ; and
from Cavan, Mr. Humphreys.

3o4 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Osberstown Gorse looked as fine a fox-haunt as usual, but it
did not hold a fox to-day for us, or if it did he would not break —
a circumstance which I dare say relieved the minds of the owners
of the widespread pastures around it, for they were in a state of
semi-morass and partial slough already ; so we moved on a couple
of miles further, really almost backwards to Punchestown Gorse,
which, like Othello, has done the state some service in this year of
grace — I mean the hunting state ; nor did it fail us at our need to-
day. In a quarter of an hour we were following our pioneer over
the field which leads to the grand stand, quite prepared, of course,
to hunt any amount of foxes with the first four or five couple of
hounds that emerged from the gorse. There is no hurry to-day.
The hounds keep moving on, but that is all ; and the fox has not
had much of a start. In a couple of fields, near the Furry Hills,
we are checking ; then, in a small bit of plough, a rustic shows us
the fox's path. On, nearly straight, up the several tiers of hills
which the eastern range throws out as spurs. The field breaks up
into three or four columns, and so, working on over small banks
and an odd bit of timber, sometimes behind the toiling pack,
sometimes before it, we arrive at Elverstown's fine gorse, and the
well-known hills and ravines thereto pertaining. The delay here
is very brief, and the hounds send their fox handsomely through
it up the opposite hill, bound apparently for Glending or Rusboro',
vt& Slieve Rhue. A snowstorm came on apace here, and shelter,
if procurable, seemed more sensible than slow pottering. If the
hounds had the gallop of the season after this, I can only speak
and write of it from hearsay ; but if others have eyes and eyelids
fashioned like mine, they could not see fifty yards in front of them,
much less ride straight in one of the blinding hailstorms which
succeeded by-and-by. I believe there were falls over the small
fences we crossed to-day. I only saw one which looked ugly at
first — Rawle, the first whip, seeming to be under his horse, which
fell at an up-bank ; but, in reality, I fancy there was no danger.
I hear this excellent hunt servant (many will endorse this record)

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 305

is leaving Kildare at the end of this season. He will be missed
much, for his civil, obliging, and respectful manner have won him
many friends. I do not pretend to be a competent judge, but I
certainly thought him, so far as my observation went, a fine patient
horseman, with dash when wanted, and well up to his work.

Wednesday, the 2ist. The Ward Union hounds had a
celebrity before them to-day in the red deer Laragh. The meet
was at Rathbeggan, the enlargement at Porterstown, and a sheep-
dog diverted Laragh from his original purpose, sending him over
the terrible Bush Farm, which some wise men avoided, while
others, hoping for open or unlocked gates, found that jump they
must to get out, and the catalogue of catastrophes was, I hear,
a long one. Thence the line leads on across the metals of the
Meath Railway to Ballymaglasson, by Blackhall, and apparently
for Kilcloon ; but Laragh turned sharp to the right here, throwing
out some of the field, and ran over a beautiful and rich pasture
vale through Little Blackhall, by Colistown fox covert and the old
castle of Mulhussey, to Mr. M'Gerr's farm; thence the track
wavers towards Larch Hill, but hardly touches it, holding on for
Kilmore and Summerhill, through the park, through the bit of
peat moss, and on to Rahinstown, where Laragh was taken ; the
watches made it one hour and forty-five minutes.

The hounds ran unchecked, I think, the entire distance. The
field got a momentary respite at the peat moss, between Summer-
hill and Agher, but the hounds were not stopped, running the
entire circle.

I should not like to walk the distance for a bet much under
fifteen miles ! It would be very hard to discover a sign of plough,
not only in the line, but for miles near it. Some fourteen finished
where many began ; nor do I profess to maintain that these four-
teen were tied to the pack for all the chase. Lord Langford,
Mr. Kelly, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Trotter had. a good view
throughout, and so had an ecclesiastic.

Scent and sport, and stout foxes, combine to help the Wexford

x

306 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

hounds, of whose performance recently I gave your readers
a slight sketch in my last letter, if my memory serves me truly.
To continue their history : On the 2gth they met at the Island,
but did not find there, nor yet at Castle Talbot. The next draw
was Mr. Maher's new covert, the Scough Bush, and a lucky one it
proved, holding two, one of whom was brought a very wide ring,
which occupied nearly an hour and a half. In his second de-
parture he was joined by another fox, which did not improve
matters ; one was run to ground after two hours and fifteen
minutes.

On the 5th inst. they met at Solsboro', and, without finishing
the drawing of the covert there, adjourned to a sedgy bottom near
Monague, where a fox (a celebrity, too) was said to resort — and
truly, for the pack started on capital terms with the outlier, and
took him straight away for Booly Hill, a seven-mile point. Here
there was a long check ; then the line, when hit off, led towards
Ballycarnen, but a sheep-dog came on the scene here, and spoilt the
almost inevitable finish to a fine run of one hour and ten minutes.

On the 7th the meet was Ballysop, and the pack were con-
tinuously hunting for two hours and forty-five minutes, changing
foxes three times, once, at a critical time, at Stokestown.

On the 1 2th they were at Wilton Castle, Colonel Alcock's
beautifully wooded residence, and, to begin with, had one hour's
covert work there. Their second fox turned up in Ballybrennan,
and the hounds, getting off close to him, hustled him away in the
teeth of the wind by Ballymacasey and Courtnacuddy Plantations,
thence to Castleboro', Lord Carew's residence, on to " Kelly's
Brow," where, running from scent to view, they rolled him over
after a race of thirty minutes' duration.

The Kildare hounds were at Kingswood on Friday, the 2ist
inst. I do not think that there was anything very exceptional or
worthy of special notice in the fact, or in the tumultuous gathering
together of an enormous crowd of the most heterogeneous
character at this most uninteresting rendezvous, for this is de rlgle

HIBERNIA VENAT1CA. 307

at Kingswood ; but what was perhaps peculiar and exceptional
was the loveliness and dryness of the day, which succeeded a
night of rain and storm — a fact attested by the sea-gulls, who were
contending with the crows for the early worm as one rode to the
meet Like the marines, these sagacious birds seem equally at
home on land and sea; and, to look at a huge flock of them
walking about picking up their breakfasts in a green field, you
would never fancy them equally at home in " the cradle of the
deep " (whatever that poetic phrase may mean) or in the trough of
a yeasty sea. Yes ; there was another feature in the programme,
no doubt most welcome to the ball-goers, and that was that
the meet was put off till 11.30 a.m. I should require more
columnar space than you could allow me were I to attempt a
catalogue raisonn'ee of a tithe of the people who filled the road for
half a mile, perhaps more. Mr. O'Reilly's coach, fairly freighted,
caught the eye ; so did the business-like team of the Inniskillings,
and Lord Clonmell's gay steppers. Colonel Sarsfield Green's and
Captain and Mrs. Playfair's phaetons were much en evidence as
they were drawn up by Mr. Walsh's house, to whose "interior"
the fraternity of sport seemed a passport which required neither
endorsement or vise. Let me mention a few of the strangers who
honoured this tryst, commencing my list with H.R.H. the Duke
of Connaught, who was, I think, staying at Bishopscourt (Lord
Clonmell's) with a large party, which included Lord and Lady
Listowel, Captain and Lady Maria Fitzclarence, Colonel Fraser,
V.C., Mr. Horace Rochfort, etc. Captain Fitzgerald, the Duke's
equerry, has been kept from the hunting field for some weeks by
an accident, and to-day was watching proceedings from the
pleasant eminence of a Malaga pony, who was one of the neatest
and smartest I ever saw. If Malaga can export ponies of that
stamp as well as raisins, I should think the fact would soon help
the Customs dues, as polo would be sure to become generally
popular again if men knew where to get the right sort of con-
veyances at reasonable rates. Among the ladies riding and

3o8 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

driving were Lady Wallscourt, Lady Maria Fitzclarence, Lady
Annette La Touche, Mrs. Forbes, the Misses Higginson, Mrs.
Spencer Lindsay and Miss Lindsay, Miss O'C. Morris, Miss
Champney, Mrs. Langrishe, Mrs. Bagot, Mrs. Franks and the
Misses La Touche, Miss Walsh, Mrs. Moore, Miss Kirkpatrick,
the Misses Beauman, Mrs. and Miss Tuthill, Mrs. Dent, the Misses
Townsend — but I cannot go on swelling the list. Sufficient to
say that Dublin was there on horseback, and that the Garrison
contributed a great many of the Rifle Brigade, the Inniskillings, and
the 3rd Dragoons. The Staff was represented by Lieut.-Colonel
Johnson, Captain Graves Sawle, and I know not how many more,
while Newbridge and the Curragh, if not in great numbers, were
strong in Major Dent of the yth Dragoons and Mr. Knox of the
R.H.A. From Wales came Lieut.-Colonel Henry Lindsay to his
old hunting grounds.

I will not recapitulate the inevitable and dreary features of the
drawing of Belgard Gorse, unseen as it is within a high old deer-
park wall — the wandering about in groups in a couple of ploughed
fields outside. The plough was drier than usual, and the fox more
accommodating than his wont, for he broke quickly enough, and
ran across Dr. E. Kennedy's fine lawn. The one hole of exit in
the wall was jammed, as usual ; but the fox did not run his usual
track — perhaps it had become monotonous. He turned round
Belgard, and trotted over that beautiful bit of level vale which
separates the gorse from the mountains. There was no scent to
press him, so he made a leisurely ring by the Rev. Mr. Robinson's
place — here I saw the hon. secretary of a fashionable hunt in what
looked for the moment a position of peril — and got into a drain
not far from his starting-point.

On the 22nd they met at Gormanstown Chapel, centre of a
fine bit of surrounding country. From Hatfield Gorse they had
a slow run by Tober to Grangebeg, where scent, which had been
flickering, failed altogether To this succeeded another slow
potter from Cryhelp mountainwards. The evening gallop of thirty-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 309

five minutes from Copelands was, I hear, of very different cha-
racter— fast and sustained. The Duke of Connaught was among
the field, which was a large one.

Sport continues very good in Westmeath. I think I sent your
readers an outline of a fine day's sport on the 1 2th, when they met
at Gaulston Park (Lord Kilmaine's), and hunted two foxes over
fine lines — the first by Lemon Grove and Enniscoffey, by Violets-
town and Clonmoyle, till he was killed after a brilliant thirty-two
minutes, which beat the field, at Plattstown, near Mullingar.
While he was being broken up a second fox went away from a
hedgerow, taking them to Gaybrook, where he hung a bit, thence
over Bush Hill, through Dunboden and Morrogh, till he ran them
out of scent.

On the 1 4th they were at Mosstown, and unfortunately chopped
a fox in the stick covert. From Lunestown they raced into a
second as he was gaining Glencara Covert, and had a slow hunting
ring from the last-named fox-haunt by Mount Dalton.

On the 1 6th they found foxes abounding at Cooksboro' and
Knockdrin, but scent was too feeble to do much good with them.

On the i Qth they met at Gartlandstown Bridge, and found a
brace at Knock Ion, but could not do much in the way of hunting
them. Hope's Gorse held two, one of which was sent along by
Barbavilla to Clondaliver, where he got to ground. The last few
minutes of this race were fastv The Crooked Wood supplied a
fox, but he got to ground quickly.

On Wednesday, the 2ist, they met at Rathconrath, and found
nothing in Justown Gorse but a stale drag. Glencara held a good
fox, and they raced him into Grieve without a check, leaving
Lunestown on the left ; here he hung for a short time, then broke
for Jamestown, crossed the railway pointing for Ballyhast ; but, turn-
ing leftwards, he was presently rolled over in the open by James-
town Bridge, after one hour and five minutes. Some slow hunting
from Lunestown towards Crissaun filled in the rest of the day.

The chief events of the past week — I mean in our little

310 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

microcosm of hunting — have been a capital day's sport on
Thursday last with the Meath hounds, when they met at the
master's park, Allenstown. I say a good day's sport ; for there
was a bill of fare for all, and suitable to all tastes. Any amount
of hound work in the forenoon about Allenstown, in the shape of
a protracted chase, which ended in marking their fox to ground on
the banks of the railway between Ballybeg and Kells. Then there
was galloping, jumping, and hunting to please all in a good bit of
twisty run from Rathmore Gorse to Tullaghnogue, through it, on to
near Meadstown, till the fox ran them out of scent near Kilbride.
Philpotstown was now drawn by way of a wind-up, and a most
thoroughly successful one it proved, its tenant giving what some
consider the run of the season ; but as the run of the season, unless
it be so exceptionally brilliant as to overshadow all possible com-
parison, is a very debatable point, a Pandora's box among the
hard-riding division, I will only say that men whom I consider
very competent judges (for I did not see it, unfortunately), laud it
as a very high-class performance. Tullyard was the first covert
touched till they came to Trim station, and here there was a check
for a bit, the fox having entered a sewer, from which he was
presently ejected ; and from this point he was hunted along the
river Boyne up to the New Haggard Mills, where he turned for
Trimleston Gorse, and was not disturbed in his sanctuary.

Mr. George Brook's harriers had a very pleasant day's sport
in the fine country near the Mause border land, or rather on the
confines of Meath and Kildare ; but the run that I hear most
talked of was thirty-two minutes with the Bellinter harriers when
Mr. Preston brought them, in compliment to Lord Rossmore and
his party, to the neighbourhood of Culmullen, and -ran a straight-
necked hare to Kilcarty Gorse. Of the Bellinter uniform I think
I have written before. On this occasion Lord Rossmore and his
sister, the Hon. Mrs. Candy, and I know not how many more,
turned out in the green livery of his lordship's private pack. It
was " the wearing of the green " on a grand scale !

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 3n

Having, owing to an accident, to leave Kingswood and its
neighbourhood after the first run yesterday, I only learnt the
events of the evening to-day (Saturday). They were on this wise :
The Belgard fox left his drain of his own accord, the hounds were
clapped on to him, and a fair hunting run of many tumbling
incidents, and thirty minutes, ending at the inevitable Greenhills,
was the result of this meritorious proceeding on his part. Then
followed a long jog-trot to Loughtown, Miss Gould's Gorse (some
particulars about which I wrote a few weeks ago), the field being
considerably reduced in numbers by this time. A secluded spot,
a run from it, if it be tenanted as it has ever been in my ex-
perience, is almost inevitable. This evening's chase was an
exceptionally good one ; I can only glance at it just now. From
Loughtown to Gastlebagot is about two and a half miles over green
fields, thence to the Garter stables on the Naas road some two
more. Thence over the old Tallaght racecourse, a beautiful track,
to a point near Killakee — I believe the exact spot is Mount Pelion
— and here they rolled him over, after a fast hour and ten minutes.

On Saturday half Ireland that affects hunting met the Meath
hounds at "the Hatchet." Fortunately, the third covert drawn,
Pratt's Gorse, was a success, and its fox led the huge field at a
break-neck pace for some three miles over a very stiff grass line
to Moynalvey cross-road, when he disappeared, and was wholly
unaccounted for. Beltrasna Gorse, the fourth visited, was also
tenanted by a good sort of fox, who broke with the very slightest
pressing, and ran a beautiful line to the Summerhill road, thence
to the verge of Larch Hill, to Mulhussey Gorse, through it, and
into Colistown Covert, where a considerate earth-stopper or
covert-keeper let him into the newly made earths.

H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught was out to-day, and going
well ; so were several of the strangers present ; and if, after to-
day's experience, they sigh for greater pace or wider fencing, I fear
they will share the fate of the tres difficiles, who are rarely pleased
and never contented.

3i2 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

I crave space ! I believe I have occupied much ! Like
Oliver, I ask for more. The theme justifies it — the stoutest and
straightest fox that has stood up this season for twelve statute
miles before a gallant pack ere he met his doom ! I will con-
dense as much as I can, merely remarking that a very high
tribute was paid to Irish hunting and Irish country last Friday
by an old Staff-man — a good rider and a feather weight, who sees
some of the best things in England, and speaks with some
connaissancc de cause. He saw the first run from Belgard well, the
early part of which was execrably slow, owing to a difficulty in
getting the hounds over the park wall ; the second part was over
a good line at steady pace, but not what would be called a very
good line. Yet so enraptured was my friend by the country and
the pack, that he wrote to me to say it was about the best thing
he had seen this year. Now, when the Belgard fox was disposed
of . subterraneously, many went home, Dublin being temptingly
near; others never saw it, having gone on to the vicinity of the
second expected draw (bad form always), and, after waiting there
some time, got tired of the process> and made a short day of it.
So it was well-nigh four o'clock when Mr. E. Mansfield put the
hounds into Pea Mount, when two foxes were on foot. Five
couples broke with one ; the rest followed presently over the
road, which the hero of my tale (the tale of a brush) crossed
resolutely undaunted by the Lords and Commons, the fair women
and brave men who lined it. His point was Killakee ; from this
he never swerved, kept the middle of the large grass pastures he
crossed en route, and never ran fence or hedgerow even when
sinking ! Through Castlebagot he sweeps, never diverging to the
inviting gorse two fields to his right ; hounds carry a great
head, and there was never a check or pause till the Garter stables
are reached. Here the fox had been slightly turned by two
rustics, but the pack swung on to him directly, crossed the Dublin
road, and never dwelt an instant till a ploughed field was reached ;
then there was a momentary delay, and most of the field retired

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 313

homewards. The line, however, was very quickly recovered ; the
fine grass lands of Kingswood are raced over, Belgard Gorse,
close by, being wholly ignored by our fugitive ; and now the
Dodder is reached (and, to mark the locality, I may say the old
Bawn Mills are on the right of our track). The far bank is
guarded by a high wall with one single practicable spot, and that
is wired. In vain does a gallant and hon. major, like another
Samson Agonistes, shake the supports ; they will not yield. And
now comes up Will Freeman, with a horse lent him by Mr. W.
Blacker, who unselfishly gave up pursuit (second horses had been
missed) ; but his trusty wire-cutter is not in the saddle-tree.
Mr. Percy La Touche, Mr. R. Walshe, jun., and a stranger, got
over lower down, but are again wire-caged. Somehow or other,
these wire coils are got over or round by something short of a
dozen men, among whom were the master, Mr. Mansfield, Major
the Hon. E. Lawless, Mr. Percy La Touche, Mr. R. Walshe,
Mr. R. Kennedy, the huntsman, and a visitor or two. Light was
waning fast, when shouts of exultation greeted the ears of this
small band of strugglers. Two countrymen had seen this good
fox rolled over in the open. For line, straightness, and decision
I do not think this hunting episode can be surpassed in these
three kingdoms this season. In the twelve miles I hear only a
single heavy-riding field was crossed, and when the Dodder
difficulty was reached the riders saw a single hound, thirty yards
in front of the pack, racing like a greyhound. The hounds, I
should add, were only " touched " once. For a comparison men
go back to the great Laragh run of fourteen Irish miles, ending in
a kill in the heart of Meath, which happened years ago, when
Lord Mayo, then Lord Naas, was at the head of the pack.

Sport has been again propitious to Louth ; a good twenty-two
minutes on the 2ist, from Skedog, by Shalip and Drakestown, to
ground in Carracon ; twelve minutes fast from Tenure to Collon,
to ground ; and forty-five minutes afterwards into Townley Hall,
where the fugitive was bolted.

3i4 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

On the 23rd a racing seventeen minutes from Ballymead, by
Tilltown, Smithstown, and Rockbellew, to Corfe Hill, where they
rolled their fox over. Then a find in Greenhills, a ring, and a
scurry by Irishtown to Gormanstown station, where the fox took
to the line, and the pack were stopped with difficulty when the
mid-day train from Dublin was just behind them. Curious, that
much the same thing occurred on the 8th inst. ! They had had
forty minutes up to this of very good hunting.

From Cork come reports of fine sport. The best chase was
from Castle Lyons, but " good things " emanated from Lisgrimlan,
Newtown, and Dunkettle. The committee propose continuing
the status quo next season, if no suitable master turns up in the
mean time. But the bait of eleven or twelve hundred a year for
three days a week, with hounds, kennels, lodging, etc., found, and
a country kept, seems far too tempting to allow me to think that
the United Hunt will remain masterless much longer. Mr. T.
Montgomery and Mr. Morgan Smith, who met hunting accidents
lately in these regions, are progressing most favourably.

I have omitted perforce several days' hunting in Meath,
notably the iQth, when, after killing a brace of foxes at Bellinter
and Dowdestown, they ran one to ground from Lismullen, and
stopped the pack when hunting their fourth fox. Other hunting
episodes I must postpone or pass over.

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 315

XXI.

" 'Tis a fine hunting day, and as balmy as May,
And the hounds to the village have come."

' ' The Hatchet " — Beltrasna burst — Swainstown — Carlow and
Kilkenny — Maynooth.

I HOPE I shall not raise a tempest of indignant contradictions
when I say that the hunting grounds of Ireland par excellence —
such as, I think, any stranger unaffected by local prejudices would
choose — are the two great valleys of the Liffey and the Boyne, with
their many tributaries, such as the Rye, the Nanny, the Hurley, the
Blackwater, the Tolka, etc. No part of Ireland, I think, presents
such wide horizons of level pasture lands, unbroken by mountain
ridges or marred for hunting purposes by interjections of peat and
bog. A cattle tract mainly, the holdings are far larger than in
other parts of the island ; and as are the holdings, so are the fields
and the fences which bound them. Some three or four lines of
railway only, at intervals of ten or a dozen miles apart, cut through
these valleys. The land is far too valuable to be covered with
much timber, so that, dotted as it is with good gorses every three
or four miles, fast gallops seem to be a corollary from the situation
itself. Of course this very wide area is not equal in all its parts
for hunting purposes ; round a few favoured spots parks and villas
cluster, with their plantations and shrubberies.

A railway or canal spoils the perfect symmetry of another
locality. The spot to which I propose to transport my readers

316 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

to-day has no such vices of situation. A solitary thatched public-
house, of the genuine old Irish peasant architecture of the better
type, much frequented by hauliers on their journey from Dum-
boyne to Summerhill, or from the latter place to Dublin, it stands
quite alone on the roadside, commanding some cross-roads, sur-
rounded on all sides by acres upon acres of the most luxuriant
and level pastures. The shriek of the locomotive whistle is heard
at a respectable distance of five or six miles ; Maynooth, the
nearest village, is five miles off. The parks of Carton and
Summerhill flank it, but at a long distance ; while the woods of
Killeen and Dunsany Castles are fully six or seven miles to the
north'ard, I should say. Such are the surroundings of " the
Hatchet," where the Meath hounds met their clientele and the
general public on Saturday, February 24th. A dark, gloomy
morning it was too ! the rain coming down copiously, while the
sombre, murky horizon seemed to portend a continuance of rain-
fall for the entire hunting day. I believe the assizes had some-
thing to do with the fixture, and its substitution for some other.
Whatever cause, remote or proximate, led to its insertion on the
Meath card, let us be thankful for the alteration. Let us hope for
a repetition, if it leads to such pleasant results as were vouchsafed
us to-day.

Yesterday's meet at Kingswood was, if we look at it in that
point of view, a splendid homage of the polloi, leavened by a fair
proportion of the aristoi, to the majesty of hunting — a willing
offering of the crowd at the shrine of the great goddess Diana.
To-day's meet was far smaller and more select ; there was no
railway invasion, no procession of coaches and carriages like
a rehearsal of the Park, no ambiguous sportsmen and sports-
women; none of the pic-nicing out-for-the-day element. It was
all hunting pure and simple, with the exception of two or three
carriages which drove to the trysting-place, and disappeared soon
afterwards. There was a small army of pad-grooms and second
horsemen, with their charges, round " the Hatchet ; " and in this

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 317

department of hunting I must say no county in Ireland within my
ken at all approaches Meath as it is this season. The rain began
to moderate about half-past eleven, the easy hour of assembly, and
by the time we were fairly under way to the first draw — Colistown
— the day had not only become fine, but had toned down into an
atmosphere very warm, pleasant, and promising. Colistown is
very young of growth, and to-day 'tis empty ; so is the next gorse,
Mulhussey, overlooked by the quaint ruins of a semi-ancient keep.
The third, Garradice or Pratt's Gorse, brings us a fox, who,
spite of the thick jungle in which he kennelled, broke away with
very little pressing, and began a course towards Summerhill,
introducing us to an initial double, overgrown with gorse and
briars, where Lords and Commons and their mounts were strug-
gling away presently in what Geoffry Gambado calls hippopiptic
attitudes ; but this reminds me that I have not said a word about
the personnel of our fields. As we were going to Colistown we met
the Bishopscourt break and its four horses, in which were H.R.H.
the Duke of Connaught and Captain Fitzgerald, the Earl of Clon-
mell, Colonels Fraser and Forster, Lord Listowel, Mr. Percy La
Touche, Mr. D. Mahoney. Kildare found representatives in Lord
Cloncurry, Mr. C. Hamilton, Mr. E. Mansfield, Captain and Mrs.
Davis, Mr. W. Forbes, and others. The Queen's County sent
Mr. and Mrs. Adair; Westmeath its former M.F.H., Mr. Mac-
donald Moreton, and Captain Roden. The Culmullen party
contributed Lords Rossmore and Francis Lennox, Captain and
the Hon. Mrs. Candy, and Miss Lloyd. War's image would not
be perfect without a major-general, and here is Major-General
Herbert, with about, or even more than, half-a-dozen aides-de-camp
of the Garrison and Castle, including Captains J. M'Calmont,
Lord Clanmorris, Captains Beecher, Colthurst, Crosbie, Pratt,
Saunders, and Kearney. The Inniskillings contributed Captain
Ward Bennett and others; the 3rd Dragoons Messrs. Dundas,
Wardrop, and Yatman ; while from the metropolis came a number
of Ward Union men, Messrs. Coppinger, Hone, Thompson, and

318 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Jameson ; and Cavan sent a master of stag-hounds in Mr. Hum-
phreys. Needless to say, Meath was in the field in great numbers,
including the strangers within its gates, who had become glcba
addicti from the love of hunting, such as Lord Howth, Mr.
Dunville, Colonel Fraser, Captain Peter Lowe, etc. Without going
further into names, I think I have said enough to satisfy the most
sceptical that this was a very representative assemblage of hunting
men — as good a gallery of experts as any M.F.H. could wish for.
Forty or fifty men well over the frowning double I have alluded
to, with huge green fields in front, the prospect before us is very
pleasing. But what is this ? The hounds recross this unpleasant
barrier, and we must follow them, for there seems no pleasant path
round it. The hounds are running, straining, sailing, whatever
metaphor pleases you best ; but certainly they are going very fast.
A few small inclosures past — not the least of the Meath type —
and we enter the lands of Clonlyon, Mr. Purdon's residence, and
then come four or five large fences, productive of a certain amount
of grief. We are now at Moynalvy cross-roads, of Ward Union
celebrity. We have come very fast for a couple of miles, or
perhaps more ; but we have lost our fox, who either lay down or
ran the road towards Summerhill. At any rate, casting forwards
or casting backwards avails nothing ; so we trot on to Beltrasna
Gorse, where a few acres of strong covert, set in a grass prairie,
afford promise of a good gallop, so only a good fox be on the
premises. Away he goes, the red rover, pointing probably for
Garradice, where we have just been, and away we go as fast as
spurred horses can take us to the big dyke or brook which inter-
venes 'twixt us and the pack. It is wide enough, but has sloping
banks, and that means much to a trained Irish hunter. I heard of
a subsidence or two — one certainly — but I saw none. There is
a momentary pause on the far side, but only of a few seconds, and
then, led by a black-and-white bitch, the pack are presently
stretched at their very best. Soon we come to a road with rather
a drop into it, and the way out appears to be over a small wall ;

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 319

so think the field who are up, and of course a few seconds of
delay are scored to the bad. Mr. Trotter, on our left, has avoided
this by picking his path over a quickset fence, and a lead of more
than a field is the consequence. Then comes a second road, and
in the adjoining field a very high up-fence ; and now hounds
s\ving a bit to the left, giving the less advanced, who had not
diverged to the right too far, a considerable pull. Now we are on
the verge of Larch Hill lands ; but the hounds won't favour us
on the right a bit — they are hugging the left all the way. It has
been a race up to here, and not a slow one at all ; and now comes
the ugly feature. In a beautiful valley between the undulations of
the Mullagh and Larch Hill is a bit of rather swampy land, and
through this flows or stagnates a drain of uncertain bottom
and depth, with a high rotten-looking bank on the far side. It is
only pleasantly jumped or scrambled over in one or two spots,
I think ; if these are missed, a flounder or fall is almost inevitable,
and men and horses did both. Less than a dozen, I believe, got
over satisfactorily. Those who knew the topography generally
avoided it, I fancy, as it was not hard to do before you had ridden
to the swamp. The line is now on to Mulhussey Gorse, when
a check occurs ; then on to the neighbouring covert of Colistown,
which we had visited ineffectually that morning. Who-whoop !
who-whoop ! The main earths here have been considerately
opened by some fox friend ; our run is over ; but for four miles it
was as fast and sustained as could be desired, the last hounds
never able to come up to the leaders. To see anything at all you
must ride ; so I think nearly everybody rode — and, if they rode at
all, rode hard, for the fences were large and the pace was very
good. Two ladies went well part of the distance. A lady on
a clever strawberry roan hunter was brilliantly carried for some
time, and was quite in the front rank. H.R.H., undeterred by
rather an unpleasant collision the day before, was going brilliantly,
and what helped riders much was the fact of the inclination of the
ground being in their favour.

320 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

On Monday morning, those who kept country hours — shall
I say hunting hours ? — saw a sheen of white crisp snow over the
face of nature. It had rained and blustered through the night,
and towards morning snow took the place of rain ; but an un-
wontedly gorgeous sun was riding in the heavens, and long before
noon the day became like that "lusty winter" which Adam, the
pattern old-time servitor in " As You Like It," likened his age
unto — "frosty but kindly." The Ward Union men, whose
previous Saturday was not so brilliant in its events as recent runs
almost warrant one in expecting, mustered in considerable force at
Culmullen, and, enlarging near the house, had a very fine run
at fair pace past Mulhussey Castle, and on to Newtown, near
Kilcock, where they gained a view and pressed their deer so hard
that he bounded on to the roof of a cottage, from which curious
eminence he was dislodged by the exertions of a popular captain,
lately in command of a troop of the 8th Hussars, giving a capital
run afterwards by Moyglare and Maynooth — altogether voted by
the company out a fine day's sport, and in a country where even
moderate sport is more enjoyable than faster and more spirited
gallops elsewhere.

On Tuesday the snow of the previous day was replaced by a
hard white frost and rime everywhere. The wind was northerly,
and "most forbiddingly keen;" but there was promise of a very
fine day, and so it turned out. The Meath hounds were at
Swainstown, a meet whose surroundings I have already attempted
to describe for your readers ; and, as they have not changed in the
least, I will only add that the picture most appreciated apparently
by crowds of cold and hungry hunters was not the panorama of
wood, vale, and hill, which the sun was lighting up just now, but
rather a warm interior, such as Dutch painters delighted in : the
gleam of silver, contrasted with the ruby, golden, and brown tints
of waning decanters, and the glow of a comforting fire. Mr. and
Mrs. Preston, the hosts, bid the many visitors a hearty welcome,
and the large party from Dublin and its Castle, including Lord

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 321

Randolph Churchill, Lieut-Colonel Forster, Captains M'Calmont,
Colthurst, Becher, Beresford, Kearney, Graves Sawle, etc., seemed
to appreciate the welcome quarter of an hour after their frigid and
slow journey by train thither. It was a large meet, and a very
pretty meet, and a good many men from other hunts attended it.
The show of purple and white leather was creditable. The dis-
play of fur and furbelows proves that what they call in the papers
" the female vote " in Meath is given to fox-hunting. We cannot
now dwell on these interesting themes; the hounds are drawing
Swainstown Woods, but they draw them to-day in vain. We now
come by a short cut — a long one to a gallant captain who parted
with his mount at an up-bank which had to be jumped willy-nilly
— to the fine wooded reaches of Killeen and Dunsany Castles,
extending our researches even to the hill of Glaine, which seemed
full of foxes last time we were here. To-day they have migrated
lower down apparently, for out of one of the Dunsany plantations
jumps a vulp, crosses the Meath line, and sets the large field in
rapid motion to the nearest bridge, then up the grassy hill of
Glaine, from which the eye catches sight of a fine hunting country,
open and woodless. We are not to traverse it to-day, for our fox
turned back to the woods very soon, and was lost or put to ground.
Killeen Woods and Killeen Gorse do not hold to-day ; so, passing
through Smithstown, we come to a well-shrubbed clump of trees,
known, I believe, in hunting diaries as the Gerrardstown Laurels,
and these soon quivered with music. The hounds started, I think,
very near their fox ; they ran him merrily and musically over a few
very wide grass fields in the wind's eye, but he got to ground in
a rabbit burrow. Our next fox turned up in Gerrardstown Gorse.
The short spin had put the horses' coats straight — I mean down, if
nothing else. There was very little fencing ; but at a blind place
a raking bay mare, whose fine striding action I admired, gave a
good sportsman a nasty fall, and very nearly a mouthful of teeth.
From Gerrardstown followed a pottering ring, remarkable in
nothing save in one rather newly constructed double towards

Y

322 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Reisk Gorse, which I would advise your readers, if ever in these
parts, not to attempt unless they are on a hunter of some ex-
perience. Whether scent improved in the next exodus of this fox
from Gerrardstown, I cannot say, as I had a lame horse, and a long
walk before me. I should think not ; for in those splendid grass
fields, which we acupunctured plentifully with our hunters' hoofs
— it is said to be a good cure for moss in land — scent ought to be
present, if at all existent. I heard that they went on in the evening
to Corbalton, found a fox there, and took him along very sharply
into Gerrardstown. The distance is not very long.

Baytown was the meeting-place of the Ward Union bounds on
Wednesday last, and the cross-roads next the house which bears
the high-sounding title were full of black and red horsemen,
moving about from a quarter past one o'clock. Among them were
not a few of the Meath fox-hunters, including Mr. Trotter, Lord
Rossmore, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Lord Langford,
Miss Loyd, Mr. Murphy of the Grange, and the Messrs. Hone ;
while from Kildare came Lord Cloncurry, Captain and Mrs. Davis,
Mr. Hanaway. The Garrison contributed a small detachment of
the Rifle Brigade, Captain Bagot, the Hon. L. White, Mr. Cross,
etc ; while the Guards, the Inniskillings, the 3rd, and the Staff
were represented. Add a large assemblage of the regular Ward
Union men, who seldom miss a day with this pack, and it will be
seen that Mr. Turbitt, the acting master, had a very fair-sized
army to command. The day was voted generally the most
decidedly unambiguously fine day which the season has vouch-
safed us so far. There had been a sharp frost of white complexion
during the night, and, indeed, during the entire day it was freezing
hard in the shade ; but the air was light and buoyant, the sun was
darting his rays all round, and the vault of heaven was high. A
thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, and the surcharged fields were
rejoicing in the dryness and absorption of the superfluous
moisture which has pressed on them all the year. Trotting past
Vesington — the general point of enlargement for a Baytown meet

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 323

— we come in a line with Crookstown, and here the hounds were
put on, and commenced running fast towards Mr. Barry's farm,
then across the Dunboyne road towards the parsonage of Rath-
regan, and on to Mr. Allen's grass expanses. Presently we view
our red deer encircled by a pack of furious colleys, with a terrier
among them. It seems she had been harried since the start by
these brutes, and every field she crossed seemed likely to swell the
number. Of course this spoilt the run, just as we were emerging
into a lovely bit of country, and a capture was luckily soon made.
Now, granting that one colley, say two colley dogs, are a necessity
to every grass farm, surely the herds might be enjoined to keep
them at home in kennel or by their sides during the hours when
the stag-hounds are likely to be in the neighbourhood — in the
neighbourhood, at any rate, of the enlargement The owners of
the farms are, I believe, most favourable and friendly to the Ward
Union hounds. As for a good red deer, I know no public cha-
racter so popular in this part of Ireland. The fox has no chance
with him. Every one is on the qui vive about his movements —
where he ran, where he was taken, etc. Every child along the
roadside "interviews" you on the subject as you ride homewards;
in fact, for an hour or two I think the stag of the day almost
divides popular honours with Mr. Butt (I mean no pun). Why,
then, cannot a very little care and forethought obviate these
recurring cur crusades? The first deer secured, a second was
enlarged on the far side of the Meath line, near Parsonstown
Manor. I think the law given was short, for scent seemed very
good indeed, and away we followed a racing pack in a line nearly
parallel to the metals up to a point near Kelliston Bridge, when
we turned to the right, ran through the lands of Johnstown, and
presently found ourselves in the village of Dunshaughlin, where
our quarry had jumped into a yard, and was unable to get out of
the trap. After some few minutes' breathing time she was enlarged
again, but a black greyhound coursed her, and turned her back into
the village ; so that this run too was marred, as it was beginning to

324 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

warm into something good. For two miles or thereabouts hounds
ran very sharply over a beautiful line, which a Warwickshire man
who was in the field appreciated very much.

Turning to the Kildare side of the country, the county pack
were at Ballymore Eustace village on Monday, and devoted its
earlier hours to hillside coverts. Hollywood was the first draw,
and a good fox broke from it at once, and ran upwards, taking the
field up a sharp hill — not pleasant riding — to some good, sound,
healthy table land, and thence on to the Scalp Mountain, which is
the refuge of all foxes for miles around, as the rocky fissures and
holes among the boulders cannot be stopped.

From Blakestown, another hill covert, there was a find and
departure; but the fox, after breaking, was headed back by a
countryman into the jaws of the pack and killed prematurely.
Elverstown held, and gave the pack plenty of covert-hunting for
nearly half an hour.

A friendly controversy has recently been going on in one of
the Dublin dailies respecting the scale of hunting expenses.
Anthony Trollope put these down at £$ a day for men with
one horse out, ;£io for those with two. A writer in the journal
I refer to, who speaks in a tone of experience and knowledge of
his subject, puts them at not less than £6, probably more.
That this should be the verdict of an Irishman seems strange,
considering how much cheaper were all 'hunting arrangements
formerly in this country than in the sister isle. Now I think the
balance of economy is in favour of England, while the balance
of sport is in favour of Ireland. As a specimen, I may quote one
item common to all countries — horse shoes, for which my smith, a
country smith too, charges me $s. 6d. a set. I should not pay so
much in the country in England. With regard to exact estimates
of hunting expenses, it is very hard to frame them precisely, unless
men sell off their studs annually, and then the average ought to be
made over a period of, say five years ; for luck is a very potent
element in the matter, and in an open season like the present,

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 325

wear and tear of horseflesh will be a very serious item. What
adds to the uncertainty of all figures in these estimates is the fact
that men have such different ways of hunting. The same horse
will come out twice a week with one man, while in another's hands
the stud groom may find once in ten days more than an average
per season. One man will give £70 or^So a year to a valet to
do work which another will get done equally well for perhaps £ 10.
Some optimists in horseflesh will find a margin for their menus
plaisirs after paying corn bills, etc. ; while others, with less of
commercial genius and a slight lack of inventive romance, will
find a difficulty in selling their horses at all at hunter-like
figures.

On Monday H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught left Bishopscourt
for Bagnalstown, in the county Carlow, for the purpose of having a
day with Mr. Watson's most perfect and perfectly hunted pack of
fox-hounds. The meet was at the railway station of Bagnalstown,
and the master, Sir C. Wolseley, Captain M'Clintock Bunbury,
Mr. Stewart Duckett, and a few more members, were in waiting to
welcome the Duke, while all classes cheered him enthusiastically
as he arrived at the meeting-place. These loyal demonstrations,
and the fact of flags having been placed on the very covert fence,
were dead against the chances of sport ; so when Kilenane was
drawn, it happened that the tenant had set out for Shankhill half
an hour previously, and, making use of his start, beat the hounds
out of scent. Flagmount and Castlewarren proving blank, they
went on to Claragh, from which they raced a fox into Flag-
mount, hustled him through it, and pulled him down in the open
after a good thirty-five minutes, which the Duke — riding the winner
of last year's Sportsman's Race here — saw very well all through.
This closed the day's proceedings, as Mr. Watson had been draw-
ing away from his own country.

The next day this pack were in a totally different part of their
territory — the Island side as opposed to the Carlow. They met
at Kildavin, and drew on towards Newtown Barry, but did not

326 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

find till they reached Coolgorragh, when a real good fox started
off from Tombrick Wood ; but turning to the right, ran right off
to Mount Leinster, where he saved himself among the rocky
crevasses. It was fifty-five minutes, with only one very brief pause,
and those who rode the whole of this fine run might be, I believe,
literally counted on one hand. They were the master, Mr. Beau-
champ Bagenal, Mr. and Mrs. West, and Mr. Stewart Duckett ;
others saw parts of it only.

From Carlow, H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught moved — an
easy stage it is — to Kilkenny Castle, where he was the guest of
the Marquis and Marchioness of Ormonde. I regret much that an
accident has prevented my seeing some very picturesque phases
of fox-hunting, such as were presented here in the court-yard of
Kilkenny Castle — a volume of Irish history bound in stone, where
an historic past is linked to a prosperous present : a brilliant and
representative assemblage — a famous pack, which has not suffered
in Colonel Chaplin's hands, smart hunt servants, and — pheno-
menon of phenomena ! — gorgeously fine weather to light up and
glorify the panoply of purple and fine horses (fine linen, doubtless,
too), which the occasion presented. Knockroe produced its fox,
who ran a nice line to Tullaroane and back again, and once more
to Tullaroane to ground. Killeen, too, was tenanted, and gave
a sharp scurry. There were some casualties : Mr. Stannard, I
hear, broke his arm ; Mr. Shine his horse's neck.

On Thursday the Kildare hounds met at Bolton Hill, the
extreme verge of their country and conterminous with Carlow,
which usually helps to swell the assembly here. To-day the
menace of frost and the splendid festivities of Kilkenny Castle
made the ranks of pursuit extremely thin, Mr. B. Bagenal being
nearly the single Carlow man present. Three foxes turned up
in Hobartstown Gorse, one of which ran first towards Castle
Dermot, then bent towards Sheriff's Hill, and led his field over
a most intricate line to the hill of Mulla Crennan, through the
plantations of Kilkea Castle, to be killed just outside, after fifty-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 327

five minutes of good hunting, twenty-five at express pace. Sheriff's
Hill furnished a second fox, who was lost at Corbally Hill;
Spratstown a third, who after " backing and filling " between his
own and Mat Conran's Gorse, ran fast to Ballintaggart Gorse,
where night probably saved him. A very good day's sport for
Fluellen's day, and I wish the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers (Colonel
Mostyn's battalion) had seen it.

Saturday, the Kildare hounds met a very fashionable assem-
blage in Maynooth, to which historic and ecclesiastical and now
academic town, I have before introduced my readers. A long
special hunting train from Dublin, laden with horse-boxes, their
owners and grooms, filled the main street of Maynooth with such
an array of beauty, rank, and fashion, as the feudal old keep of
the Geraldines has not overshadowed for many a day. Among
the visitors were H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught and his equerry,
Captain Maurice Fitzgerald, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill
and Lady Rosamond Churchill, Lady Wallscourt and Lady E.
Stanhope, the Earl of Cork and Lady D. Boyle, Lord Clanmorris,
Lieut. -Colonel Forster, Captain Beresford, Captain T. M'Calmont,
Captain Kearney, Captain St. G. Colthurst, Captain Graves Sawle,
Captain Crosbie, Captain Bagot, Captain Lascelles, Lord Ross-
more, the Hon. L. White, Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy and
Miss Loyd, Colonel Fraser, V.C., Mr. Dunville, Mr. Rose, Captain
and Lady Maria Fitzclarence, Lieut. -Colonel the Hon. C. W.
Thesiger and Mrs. Thesiger, Captains O'Neal and Mills, Mr.
Thompson and Mr. Ellis, of the Inniskillings ; Major Dent, Captains
Brooks, Day, and other officers of the yth Dragoons ; Captain
Hibberd and officers of the R.H.A., Royal Engineers, and Rifle
Brigade; Lieut-Colonel Rich, R.E., Mr. Usher Roberts, and
pursuers from Kildare, Meath, and I know not what other quarters,
and it will be gathered that the meet was simply immense and
overflowing. Sport was not in proportion — a mere ha'p'orth of
bread in an intolerable quantity of sack. Taghadoe was drawn
blank; Cullen's Gorse was tenantless. Carton gave us a brace,

328 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

one of whom was sent along through the park, over the wall, and
then for about a mile and a half over a charming bit of vale
watered by the Offalis, where the ladies — specially Lady D. Boyle,
Lady Rosamond Churchill, and Lady Randolph Churchill — sent
their hunters along over some very inviting singles with good will
and the happiest results, till our fox re-entered the Duke of
Leinster's and his own park, to be again hunted through its long
length, hustled over the boundary wall, and killed in a somewhat
sensational fashion by some old ruins. A magnificent fox ; Lady
Rosamond Churchill possesses his brush. The Hon. Mrs.
Barton's beautiful grey hunter gave her a very shaking fall, and
a Pytchley man was turned over by wire "couchant," but not
hurt. Castletown gave us no sport. Fearing to occupy too much
space, I have only given an outline of the day.

The Louth hounds were at Pepperstown Cross on Monday,
and drew the coverts of Ardee House, Clonbracton, Churchtown,
and Rathony, with the result of a find in each, a slow run, two foxes
sent to ground, and several horses cut from the stones so prevalent
in the banks here. The master had five thus wounded, though
none were very seriously injured.

On Friday, the 2nd, they were at the Naul, and a run which
looked very promising from that cover ended abruptly in a sewer,
overlooked till to-day. • From Mullahone they had the same
mischance, but Knockbrack gave them a fox, who went off by
Walshestown, and then circled back, beating the pack by getting
into a rabbit burrow: a very sharp gallop of twenty-three
minutes over a beautiful country. The day in its afternoon hours
was so persistently wet that no one asked for further draws.

On Monday, Bective, on the Boyne, the hunting residence of
Lieut. -Colonel Fraser, V.C., was the scene of one of the prettiest
lawn meets I have witnessed for some time, perfect in all details,
and most fashionably attended— the Marquis of Waterford, Lord
R. Churchill and the Ladies Randolph and Rosamond Churchill,
Mr. and Mrs. Dunville, the Earl of Cork and Lady D. Boyle,

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 329

Lady Stourton and party, General Herbert and party, Captain and
the Hon. Mrs. Candy, the Earl of Howth, Lords Rossmore,
Langford, and Listowel, Captain and Mrs. Chaine, Major and
and the Hon. Mrs. Donaldson, Lieut. -Colonel Forster, Lieut-
Colonel Johnson, and Captains Colthurst, Kearney, J. M'Calmont,
Norris, and Beecher, A.D.C.'s, being among the visitors. The
day was beautiful in its early hours, and the fox turned up
opportunely in Churchtown, running to Philpotstown. Of the rest
of the day I cannot speak now, having hurried off to see a meet
of the Ward Union hounds at Culmullen cross-roads, which pro-
duced two runs : the first, very promising and over a beautiful
line, was spoilt by the inevitable colley pack ; the second was a
very good one from Kilmore via Culmullen House.

The latest interesting items of hunting news in Ireland, which
I can only allude to here, are — First, a capital hound run in the
Queen's County on Monday last, when the pack met at Corbally,
found there, and blinked the entire field and staff by slipping off
on the far side of the thick hedgerow, running their fox to ground
near Orchard, after a very fast seven miles over a good line; among
the field out were Lord Egmont and Captain Hare, master of the
Duhallow hounds. Secondly, a magnificent meet of the Ward
Union hounds at Dunboyne, on Wednesday, the 7th, followed by
a very fine ring over a charming country, which Lord Cork, the
late Master of the Buck-hounds, saw right well.

330 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

XXII.

' The backward crowd are still the first to chide ;
For all can censure when but few can ride."

Maynooth and its multitudes— Bective beatitudes— Mr. Murphy— Long run
from Dunmurry — Dunboyne and the Ward Hounds.

" THE everlasting hills ! " — say, rather, the everlasting rills ! One
day, or rather one morning, of snow, two of white and one of
black frost, and there seemed a possibility of hunting being in the
same parlous case in this Green Isle as our letters from the mid-
land shires tell us of as depressing the spirits of pursuers in the
land of the Saxon ; but Friday solved the problem for us in a
deluge of rain, and by Saturday the familiar features of water in
furrows, and small lacustrine systems over the vale, greeted the
eye of survey in its early sweep of the horizon. A gloomy,
penumbral, overcast morning it was ! — the west seemed rain-laden.
Soppy leathers and soaked tops seemed our inevitable portion.
The Kildare hounds were due at Maynooth at 11.30 a.m. on
Saturday, the 3rd instant. It was known or surmised that H.R.H.
the Duke of Connaught was coming out to join them. Quelle
pauvre chance for the hundreds bound to attend this great hunting
function ! — the legions of ladies, \ the cohorts of captains, the
phalanx of pursuers from every corner of Ireland. Here my
alliterates break down ; for, if my memory serves me aright, the
gentlemen-at-arms who formed the famous phalanx were on foot,

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 331

and cavalry was our order in Maynooth. Now dress plays no
small part in a great hunting function such as to-day promised to
be, and the pride of purple and the flash of Propert's properties
suffer considerable diminution when exposed for hours to a dilu-
vial downpour. As for ladies, I suppose, if the weather be in-
ordinately bad, the -majority of them, at least those under
chaperonage, will stay at home very wisely ; but if the day be
simply chequered and ominous, I suppose the question matinale
will be, is it the thick habit or the thin, the tall hat or the round,
the covert coat brought or the covert coat left at home ? To-day
it was evident at a glance that the important question had been
put and answered in very different fashions. One or two well-
known pursuers made the dirtiest weather of it, so far as the
outer man was concerned ; some compromised ; not a few put
their-faith up to "set fair," and dressed accordingly — and they
were right. By n a.m. every trace of gloom and inky skies had
vanished ! The air was soft and velvety, a sun worthy of July was
darting out warm rays all round, the perfume of the gorse blossom
was abroad, crows were busy house-building; spring had burst
upon us suddenly, in a fashion more like a Canadian latitude than
our own ! Some twenty horse-boxes came down from Dublin
alone : from Newbridge and the Curragh came a strong body of
cavalry. Lord Howth had mounted Lord Cork on a very clever
hunter, while Colonel Fraser had lent a very perfect chestnut, the
winner of the Light-Weight Red-coat race in Meath last year, to his
daughter, Lady D. Boyle. The Carton party was a large one.
" The Castle " contributed well-nigh a score of lords, ladies, and
ministering captains to the gay scene ; and, to sum up, the paral-
lelogram formed by the ruins of the Fitzgerald fortresses on one
side, the college of St. Patrick on the other, and some modern
houses for the third and fourth, was choke-full of the rank and
fashion of Ireland — civil, military, and political.

Mr. Mansfield was not long in setting his cavalcade in motion ;
and, trotting for a mile or two, we turn into a lane-way, both deep

332 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

in clay and mire, which leads to Taghadoe Gorse. The field out-
side the gorse is of a consistency which Hendon might rival in
squelchiness, but very few other places I wot of. Taghadoe is
blank, as the trumpet proclaims, and we move on, in two or three
columns, by different routes, to Cullen's Gorse, about a mile or
more distant, with some interludes of jumping and tumbling — of
which I saw an illustration presently in a very dirty coat and a
hat wrinkled like a top-boot of fifty years ago. Cullen's Gorse is
approached by a sort of fosse road full of holes and inequalities ;
and here I heard that the Hon. Mrs. Barton's grey hunter came
down heavily, and dislocated her wrists or elbows : I did not see
the accident myself. There is no fox on the premises, so fox-
haunted in the early season. So we move back to Carton, the
splendid park of the Dukes of Leinster, which yields a rich
harvest of beauty of scenery and architecture to the eye as it
wanders over the spacious reaches of wood and water, river, lake,
still pool and foaming cascade, hill and dale, inclosed by a wall
not much less than eight miles in circumference. Besides the
woods, there is a small bit of gorse and fox covert on a sunny hill-
slope over-hanging the river Rye, and here we found a brace of
foxes at once — the dog, one of the finest specimens of sleek,
well-fed, well-grown foxhood that could be seen. Away he goes
most obligingly, en evidence over the turf, setting the multitude into
a gallop. His mask is pointed for Moygaddy, and it is on the
cards that he will not stop till he has reached the Meath coverts
of Mulhussey or Colistown. The wall I have alluded to is very
high, and, though pierced by many gates, the gate in our path
was by some oversight locked, and the key is not forthcoming.
" Love laughs at locks," says the song ; so do fox-hunters too, and
a key was soon found that gave an exit. Presently our fox, who
has, owing to this delay, been left to his own devices, tries to steal
back to the park, and is viewed in doing so from the road. The
hounds are soon clapped on, and are carrying the line over some
rich grass fields, through which flows the river or brook Offalis —

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 333

a small stream, but presenting few jumpable spots, dammed up
in others, and altogether a watery barrier of some moment. How
some fared I know not ; I heard of seven bathers in one part
alone. The lot I had cast in with, led by a local pilot, Mr. Chap-
man, found an easy ford, and got over nicely and drily ; then,
after a flying fence or two, crossed the Dunboyne road, and pre-
sently pulled up at the Leixlip gate of Carton, to find the fox had
re-entered the park, run through his gorse, essayed another ven-
ture into the country ; but the hot day and his high condition
were against him, an old ruin looks most inviting, so he creeps in.
Freeman and the first whip climb up and actually handle him, but
he slips away, only to fall into the jaws of the pack. The brush
is presented to Lady Rosamond Churchill. Who-whoop ! who-
whoop ! There ought to be much joy among the hen-wives
around ! Our next visit was to Castletown, but it produced no
sport. A beautiful day, spent among scenes of great beauty, in
pleasant company : who shall say that this, too, is not one of the
pleasant sides of hunting — cub-hunting, if you will — a white-waist-
coat day, if not a red-letter one ? Captain Saunders narrowly
escaped an accident from concealed wire : as it was, it turned
man and horse over, and left its mark on the saddle-tree ; but he
was in the act of jumping into a road, so had very little or no
"way on," hence the immunity ! Let me also state in all fairness
that this side of Meath is hardly ever run over by fox-hounds,
though of course it is liable to an inroad any day from the Meath
coverts of Colistown and Mulhussey as well as from the Kildare
side. Harriers, however, hunt all round here, and wire is nearly
as dangerous with hare hounds as with their bigger brethren.

Monday morning glistened with rime in its matutinal hours,
your scribe and chronicler being about early, pricking down to
Bective on the Boyne, to assist, if we must use the idiom of the
Gaul, at a lawn meet at Colonel Eraser's residence. I know few
rides which are likely to impress a stranger with a more vivid
sense of the scope and quality of the best Irish hunting grounds.

334 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

The native, from the habit of seeing the grassy panorama spread
weekly, perhaps daily, before his eye, fails to realize its grandeur
(in a hunting sense) ! but let him come from, say, the shires, and
take this very ride of perhaps fourteen or fifteen English miles,
and then let me hear his verdict. I recollect travelling over a
portion of this country with the master of a crack pack of fox-
hounds on the Navan line, and his remark to me, after a spell of
gazing out of the window at the surrounding grasseries, was,
" Why, one would think a fox should never be lost here ; " but
foxes are lost here, as in other countries, and I do not pretend to
arrogate for Meath superior scenting qualifications to other hunt-
ing territories. Those best informed give the preference to several
other districts less pleasing to the eye. What I do say is that a
finer hunting perspective is gained here than in any land I wot of
short of the Western prairies. Passing by Baytown Park, Vesing-
ton, Rathbeggan, we come to J5afterstovm — which really seems a
misnomer, and that the true reading should be Butterstown for
a land ready to overflow with milk and its compounds. Passing
over one or two little elevations, called " hills " in this vale land,
such as Piper's Hill and Cross Keys Hill, and leaving the Grange
and Kilcarty to our left, neither of them wooded enough to detain
a fox more than a few moments, we come to Kilmessan station.
The train has just landed its freight, human and equine, and it
is evident that Dublin means to contribute largely to the gay*
gathering at BeCtive this forenoon. Pass we on now to the bridge
over the Boyne, eagerly scanned by salmon fishers, glancing
at Bective Abbey and its ivied cloisters ; a turn brings us in a
minute or two to Colonel Eraser's pleasant hunting box, under the
very windows of which the tawny flood of the Boyne water seems
to be continually passing seawards. I said the day was fine and
frosty, and towards eleven o'clock a cheerful sun lit up the firs and
laurels, the cohorts of carriages, and the legions of led horses that
had taken up, or were taking up, positions all over the grounds.
Accustomed to very plethoric meets, this strikes me as exceeding

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 335

ordinary limits, spite of Sandown and Croydon attractions, while
the mere sight-seeing, pic-nicing, outing element is most con-
spicuously absent. In the brief postscript I added to my last
week's letter I mentioned, I think, the names of a good many of
the principal visitors, including the Dublin Castle party, the aides-
de-camp in waiting, and the aides out of waiting. The science
of venerie and woodcraft was illustrated by such representatives
as the Marquis of Waterford, the Earl of Howth for fox-
hounds, the Earl of Cork for stag-hounds, Lord Rossmore for
harriers. Colonel Fraser, the host, was quite the Marquis de
Carabbas, as far as horses went, as his stable seemed to be requi-
sitioned for all weights and all colours. Whose is that very neat
corky grey that Lady D. Boyle seems so happy on? — Colonel
Eraser's. Whose is that lengthy blood like chestnut, Famous, that
carries Lady Rosamond Churchill so easily? — from the same
stable, of course. How many he mounted besides Lord Water-
ford and Lord Listowel I cannot now say, merely remarking that
the man would be fastidious who would decline a mount on the
clever old-fashioned grey that he rode himself. A bright, beauti-
ful scene, with the pack in the foreground, shepherded by Goodall
and his staff. Every one seemed to have kept picked horses
for the festive occasion, or else the average in Meath must be
unusually good for the time of year. Time would fail, and space
forbid, my dwelling on even the most noticeable features — on
Captain P. Low's most perfect little equipage ; on the Hon. Mrs.
Donaldson's badger-coloured Little Wonder ; on many horses of
fashion and reputation ; of the many objets d'art in Bective to
please the cultured eye ; of the objets gastronomiques to please a
more imperative and clamorous sense ; of subtle essences and
petits verres; of two quaint foxes the gardener had designed in
red sand ; of the care the gallant colonel had shown for the
hungry, thirsty crowd of pedestrians whom such a meet must
attract. All this I must pass by, as the gay cavalcade is already
in motion ; and, strangely enough, we are passing by the belts of

336 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

woodlands near the Boyne, and are trotting on towards Navan,
never pausing till we pull up at Churchtown, from which it will be
recollected by your readers we had such a fine gallop a few weeks
earlier in the season. A very small parallelogram of fir and gorse
is Churchtown, and not many hundred yards from the road ; so
that 'tis not surprising that, on a dry, cold, crisp morning like this,
ringing hoofs and grinding wheels should have scared away any-
thing but a very sleepy, surfeited, and lazy fox. The trumpet
sounds, and we are going somewhere else, when somebody brings
word that the tenant of Churchtown has been viewed stealing
away a few minutes ago. The hounds are on his line in a few
seconds, and tell us, in language not to be mistaken, that he is
not long in front. Philpotstown is but a few fields distant, and
thither they hunted him fast. Having made arrangements to join
the Ward Union hounds at Culmullen cross-roads at 1.30 p.m.,
and, as there was an interval of nearly ten miles between the
places, I was obliged to leave our fox at this interesting crisis to
his fate, and, facing a fierce hailstorm, that possibly saved the
fox's life, trot on to Culmullen, reaching it just in time for the
enlargement of the first red deer a few fields below Culmullen
House eastward. There is a beautiful grass valley on either the
northern or the eastern side of the little dividing range on which
stands Culmullen House. Our deer plunged down eastward, but,
unfortunately, some colley dogs had determined not to wait for
the onslaught of the pack — " the regulars " — so they chivied the
unfortunate quarry from the post. A charming line, for about
a mile and a half; the pace was very good, and sustained, till a
boundary fence of unjumpable calibre seemed to turn the deer as
well as her pursuers. Soon after this she ran past " the Hatchet "
in view, turned back, made a short ring almost over her foil, and
was taken safely at " the Hatchet."

The next enlargement took place beyond Kilmore Parsonage,
and was far happier, the deer crossing some heavy-going grass
fields, rather widely dyked, and then running nearly up to Cul-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 337

mullen House, where the field, who were getting the worst of it,
had a turn in their favour. He then swept down the vale, and
made Dunsany Park, where he was secured : fifty minutes very
fast over a grassy line, no checks and no pauses. For further infor-
mation I would recommend a consultation with Messrs. Hone and
M'Gerr, who know all about it. I was amused at the remark of a
rustic who had secured two loose horses, whose riders did not show.
" Bedad, I can sell a horse now ! " They were a good-looking pair,
and, spite of the evidence of a fall, would not have been a bad
investment for a few ponies, I think, if the title would have stood.

Apropos of good horses, it is gratifying to one's " guesses at
horse truth " to find that Sultana and Abdallah, the two winners
at Sandown last week, were honourably lauded in The Field on
the occasion of a brief visit to Mr. Burton Persse's stables and
kennels at Moyode Castle a few years ago ; but it requires no
prophetic mantle to cast a good chasing horoscope for the progeny
of the Arab Maid and Thomastown.

The sequel to the "day's doings" in Meath (I mean the
5th inst.) was a long desultory sort of run from the inexhaustible
Rathmore — the piece de resistance for Meath's M.F.H.'s — by Tul-
laghnogue, Meadstown, and Kilbride, neither straight nor fast,
but, as I can say from experience, over a country abounding in
fences of large proportion, almost the largest. Men thought them
serious ; the ladies skimmed over them, I am told, with an aplomb
all their own, the result of fine hands and great faith in their
mounts — a faith which was not impaired by catastrophes. I also
heard that Mr. Trotter's pas seul (if I may use the term) over
most repelling-looking timber deserved the reward of a lead of
twenty-five minutes in the fastest burst of the season, which,
however, did not come off.

But the day must have been saddened to many, if not all, by
a fearful accident which befel Mr. Murphy, of Braymount, a veteran
sportsman, whose years had only brought him increase of friends.
I did not see it, so can only report from description. He was

z

338 HIBERNIA VENAT1CA.

riding a three or four-year-old, who plunged or bucked, and
unseated his rider by a gateway. With the instinct of an old
sportsman, he held on to the reins when down, though begged to
let them go, and his horse, probably thoroughly frightened, kicked
him about the head and face till he was desperately wounded.
Two hard-riding Saxons who were near (Captains Candy and
Norris) did all that care could do till professional assistance
arrived, and now, I hear, the doctors hope for the best.

Kildare is a meet which most Kildare men hold in little love
or esteem, and when it comes on the roster in due course some
are apt to develope suddenly extraordinary business aptitudes,
while others take the occasion of visiting a neighbouring pack,
running up to town, or wiping off arrears of correspondence ;
and yet it is never a blank day, or without three or four foxes
turning up somewhere ; and when there are foxes and miles of
almost uninterrupted light grass all around, a fine run is always
possible. The desagremens of a Kildare meet are mainly the
certainty of the presence of a crowd of pedigree horses, rather
free of their hind legs, who are being " entered to fox-hounds,"
and perhaps "qualifying" for hunters' races. Then, though
foxes abound, wild straggling gorse, clothing miles of hill ridge,
abounds "more, and after a few days' experience the ascent and
descent of these steep pitches become monstrously wearisome to
man and horse. On the other hand, it may be pleaded that the
four or five miles' gallop over the Curragh on the way to the meet
is worth any journey ; that many masters in England and Scotland
would rejoice greatly if the Dunmurry range and the neighbouring
vale were added to their territory ; that, in fact, the despising of
Kildare and its hunting possibilities is mere fastidiousness result-
ing from a surfeit of good things ; that the presence of platers is
a necessary evil, which may be turned to profitable account during
the coming season ; and that one stiff bank or two or three hours'
cub-hunting will weed the field of the entire company. As the
bard said or sang —

" Non nostrum est tantas componere lites."

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 339

Suffice it to say that on this particular occasion Kildare was very
popular among soldiers and civilians, who swelled the numbers
of the field to most unwonted proportions. Conspicuous among
the former was Colonel Bray, of the 4th of the line, on his good
Arab hunter, at the head of a number of his brother officers.
The day began rather badly at Dr. Chaplin's Gorse on the south
side of the Curragh ; it held a fox, and when he broke some
impetuous men made a short cut through a viaduct, over which
the metals of the Great Southern and Western line pass, headed
him back into the jaws of the pack, and so lost their possible
gallop. Two men, I hear, misjudging the height of this viaduct,
got very nasty falls in passing through. The next move was to
Dunmurry Hill, where four foxes were on foot together. One
was hunted to the Green Hills and back twice, when he broke
in the opposite direction, brushed by Dunmurry House (Mr.
Medlicott's), by a hill known from its conformation as " the Chair
of Kildare," then ran over a bit of swampy land, where much
grief of the watery order followed, right up to Morristown Biller,
Mr. Moses Taylor's residence, passed through his grounds, over
the Newbridge racecourse, till I hear the hounds, hunting most
perseveringly through small inclosures with waning and flickering
scent, rolled him over at last. This was perhaps the longest run
ever known from Dunmurry. To the lovers of recurring jumps,
not too large, it was indeed a perfect treat in the way of riding.
The Duhallow run with an outlying fox through Ballygiblin, and
straight on to Roskeen, when he beat the pack to ground, is
spoken of as a very fine pursuit, and fast. I forget the date, but
it was on the day they met at Aughrim.

I had written this paragraph from the data of a friend, who
had to catch a train and was not able to see the finale. I have
since ascertained from one who rode this long run from beginning
to end, and saw everything, that after his tour over Pollardstown
and Mr. Moses Taylor's lands, the fox tried some earths at the
rectory of Morristown Biller, crossing the Great Southern and

340 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

Western line to do so. They were sealed ; so he recrossed the
railway track in view, close by the Newbridge railway station, and,
finding no haven or shelter near here, he boldly set out for the
Hill of Allen, some four miles distant, which he reached in front
of the pack — scent, which had been of the lowest all day, dying
away to nothing as a sleet storm came on. Those who saw the
dog-pack at work over this long nine miles (Irish), or rather more,
which took more than two hours to accomplish, laud the per-
formance greatly. Ir was this same pack who, under better
auspices, killed their fox handsomely last Friday week after the
run of the season, and after some ten miles of pace, which told
out every hunter in the field.

On Tuesday the Meath hounds had what a Leicestershire man
called a capital forty-six minutes from Bengerstown Gorse, one of
their best strongholds of foxes.

I sing the stag ! call him any opprobrious name you please —
calf, jackass, what you will. After the enormous levee in his
honour to-day, I — at least supposed to be a veracious chronicler,
one who at any rate aims at veracity and accuracy, if he cannot
at all times attain to it — feel bound to speak of the Ward Union
quarry with the respect due to the motor of the finest, most
fashionable, and largest array I have yet witnessed in Ireland —
a gathering which Englishmen who were out looked upon with
amazement, and which a pursuer from the shires whom I talked
to on the subject thought a very magnificent display. I am not
prepared to give you a catalogue of names, a list of the riders, or
an enumeration of the rank and fashion that peopled the coaches,
phaetons, T carts, and outside cars which are not quite extinct in
our island as yet ; but I hardly fancy that since the time of
Henry VI. (and that includes a long cycle) Dunboyne has ever
been the theatre of so splendid an assembly as graced its some-
what squalid market-place and fair green to-day. A resume of a
few of the " proceres " is all I can attempt here, as, to begin with,
I am sure my eye did not take in half the comers. Of the crowd

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 341

I saw, I doubt whether I knew more than, or as much as, two-
thirds ; and, of these two-thirds, it would require a more faithful
memory than mine to give a list at all approaching accuracy.

Ab Jove principium I Our Jupiter is H.R.H. Colonel the
Duke of Connaught, mounted on Black Knight, and attended by
Captain Maurice Fitzgerald, his equerry, and a number of the
officers of his battalion of the Rifle Brigade, including Captains
Lascelles and Bagot, Lord Clanmorris, and Mr. Wade Prosser.

The Castle party were expected, but something — a Drawing-
Room imminent, I believe — prevented their attendance. The
Staff, including Captains Kearney, Norris, Colthurst, Graves Sawle,
Michel, Crosbie, etc., were out Mr. Morrogh, looking none the
worse for his leg so recently smashed, was out on wheels, and so
was Mrs. Morrogh and party. Eight coaches, fairly and darkly
freighted, made one think we had jumped into May and the
Magazine ; but one look at the thatched cottages, not to speak of
a " dunderin', thunderin', rantin' " blast, laden with hail and sleet,
brought me back to March and Dunboyne. Among these drags
were Mr. O'Reilly's, Mr. Turbitt's, the Inniskillings', the 3rd
Dragoon Guards', Captain Saunders's, Sir J. Power's, Mr. Close's.
Among the visitors were Lords Cork, Listowel, Langford, Clon-
curry, Maurice Fitzgerald, and Rossmore ; Captain and the Hon.
Mrs. Candy, Captain Tuthill, Miss Tuthill, and Miss Tynte,
Captain and Mrs. Chaine, Mr. and Mrs. Dunville, Mr. and Mrs.
Rose, Lieut. -Colonel Forster, Lieut-Colonel Fraser, V.C., Mr.
Trotter, Captain P. Low, the Messrs. Hone, Mr. Chadwick, Mr.
Murphy, Sir J. Barrington, Captains Ward Bennett, Heaviside,
and Mills ; and Messrs. Ellis and Thompson, of the Inniskillings ;
Captain Parke, Mr. Massy Dawson, and officers of the 3rd
Dragoon Guards; Lieut. -Colonel Sarsfield Green, R.H. A.; Captain
Saunders, Mr. Waldron, and officers of the R.H.A. and 7th
Fusiliers ; Captain P. Butler, Mr. M'Farlane, Mrs. Maxwell and
Miss Hamilton, Mr. and Miss Hussey, Mr. and Miss Coleridge, Mr.
and Mrs. Jameson, Captain Saunders, and Dr. Swan. How many

342 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

hundreds (or thousands?) were assembled cannot be now told.
My groom, a west-countryman, says he thinks he has seen as large
gatherings in the Duke of Beaufort's country, when perhaps
Gloucester, Bristol, Cheltenham, and Bath swelled a single meet ;
and for my own part I have lively recollection of a huge gathering
at Badminton on an occasion when his Grace of Beaufort wished
to have a quiet by-day for his guest the Prince of Wales, but which
swelled into something enormous by luncheon-time. Lord Cork,
whose recollection must embrace some very large assemblies at
Maidenhead thickets and in the Harrow country, told me he
thought the crowd compared in numbers with those he recol-
lected when Master of the Buck-hounds ; but in point of horseflesh
he decidedly gave the palm to the Ward gathering. There was
hardly a horse out that was not a hunter of some calibre, light,
medium, or heavy ; hardly a man was riding who did not mean to
see some of the fun — which, judged by the carriages, looked like
an early rehearsal of the Derby — if he could not compass the
whole. I should have stated that the meet was originally printed
on the card for Norman's Grove ; but Dunboyne was selected, I
suppose on account of its stable accommodation and greater
capability of holding the aggregation of carriages and horses ;
fortunately, perhaps, for greater numbers were not desirable by
any means. The assizes are going on now in Ireland, while
Croydon has drawn off not a few of our regular hunting men.
But we are at last in motion, leaving Dunboyne behind, crossing
the Navan line, and in half a mile or so we turn into a green field,
where the mixed multitude of red and darker colours take their
places, for in a minute or two the pack will be laid on. Just now
they are very quiet in a corner of the field by Charley and Jem
Brindley's horses, a pair of greys — Charley's being the celebrated
grey huntress of six or seven seasons, fresh as a four-year-old and
blooming in condition. Away they go, with a crash of melody,
while in a few seconds we are partially jammed in an opening in
a quickset hedge large enough for several carts, or the coaches and

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 343

six which drive through Acts of Parliament, but not for this crowd
— a field can be easily lost here. I think I lost more. There is
a magnificent prospect before us — green fields, no woods or
plantations — all open, undulating country ! Nothing big has been
jumped yet. Presently we come to the brook — I think the
Pinkeen Brook — known here as the Caulstown River, margined by
a slight bank with a considerable drop on the far side. A number
have got safely over, for I see them a field ahead, and going fast.
I believe C. Brindley, Lord Langford, and a host more got down,
or well-nigh down, at it. My immediate predecessor, a south-
country lord, is on his back grasping the reins, but happily on the
right side. I hardly know him — indeed, I haven't the honour at
all — but an introduction is not necessary in these struggles ; so,
landing safely, I hope he ain't hurt. "Not the least, but my horse
can't jump one bit." It was a widish experience, and perhaps
his hunter was more used to banks and walls in the land of his
practice. On we go. It would be uninteresting and mere sur-
plusage to tell the townlands we pass by and through. We have
galloped by two farmsteads, and already some of us have — strange
phenomenon ! — picked our way over a bit of plough. The Fairy
House grand stand is a landmark to our right, and now we cross
the road over which so many thousands will probably be travelling
to the Ward Union races next Easter Monday. There is a slight
dwell here, and hunting slackens for a field or two as we pass
Porterstown Farm. Presently I see a collision at a deep ditch,
in which Mr. Murphy, of the Phcenix Park, who was going well
up to this, is an undeserving victim to weight and the vis major
— not drowned, however, for I see his head, caput extulit undis,
appearing on the bank and able to tell of his knock-down. The
place in this fence thus blocked, Colonel Forster happily lights on
another, and leads us over gaily on his very hunting-like and clever
grey mare. We have left Ratoath behind ; hounds are sailing
over wide green fields ; fences, if large, are not intricate, and now
we come to a road with a narrow cut leading into it, when I see

344 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

my immediate predecessor, or the flash of his boots, in the air, his
horse's head gently pillowed on the far bank, the body seemingly
in the water. Over the road, over two or three very large fields,
and one biggish brook if the right place was not hit. I see some
trees to the right, which I think belong to Lagore; some wide and
rather steep fences meet us here, and require considerable energy,
for we have been going nearly thirty minutes over this big country.
I see a very heavy man — Mr. Meldon, brother to the M.P. for
Kildare — taking them straight and well on a powerful chestnut still
full of go. But now we are at Dunshaughlin Poor-house, well known
to fox-hunting Meath.

The tide of hunting slackens again a little, as our quarry
has crossed the road five minutes in front, as we hear from a
rustic on a bank. And now the hounds are running once more,
leading us over that very bit of country which was the track of
the long-winded, stout fox, the hero of the great Dunshaughlin
run a few months ago (I wish I could write weeks], over the very
same big, safe, but very large double, which a loose horse does in
grand style beside or in front of me. A great sedgy wide-topped
bank. I believe a fox was lying basking on it, for Mr. Meldon
presently views one away, and the hounds notice him too for a
bit, faltering in their discrimination of odours. Then we work on
into a small clump of trees, protected by a deep ditch, and a bit
of quickset, which requires jumping; and here the Duke of
Connaught's good black horse came down, after carrying his
rider right well up to this point. Now we are on the verge of that
campo abominato (so far as fences are concerned), the Bush Farm ;
some few enter it, the majority keep outside of it in a bight of
land between the well-wired brook which protects this farm and
the Navan line of rails ; hounds race on. At one time it looks as
if they would cross the metals, and a gate is handy here ; but no !
they turn provokingly to the left, and we are on the wrong side of
brook and wire — a fair number who have persevered to this point
of a chase which has well-nigh run out the sands of a full hour-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 345

glass. The wire looks menacing, and the brook is of uncertain
depth and bottom. In two places where cattle have gone to drink
in summer the passes are barricaded up with solid trees, morticed,
so to speak, into the adjacent banks. In vain to pull at them —
they are solid as the Monument. Lots of volunteers get into the
stream and 'tis something to learn that 'tis not deep, and that the
bottom is not boggy. Lord Cloncurry, wading in valiantly, pulls
down one section of wire for us ; but horses, perhaps rather jaded,
instead of jumping at or on the far bank, are fain to jump in and
stay there — so this place is choked up. Lower down, where this
bight of land ends, I hear Lord Rossmore galloped down, put his
horse into the stream, and cleared the solid timber fully four feet,
I think, or more, judging from horseback, and got away in grand
style. No one else was able to follow him, and I hope he caught
the hounds for his own and his hunter's gallantry. Meantime we
discovered a half-jumping, half-scrambling pass, and so we got
clear. After galloping over a couple of fields, we land on the
Dunboyne road near Woodpark, and learn that our quarry has
run the road for a bit, and most opportunely for some who had
long since given up pursuit and were wending their way home-
wards. The remainder of the run was principally road work, and
I believe the chase extended beyond Kilrue, so that to-day's deer,
if none the worse for his exertions in getting over some fourteen
or fifteen miles of country and road, may be expected ere the
season closes to stretch many a good hunter, and call on his
stamina and staying powers to their utmost limits of tension. I
see the Dublin dailies, or rather the leading one, make the run not
only a very fine one, which it was, and over a superb country ;
but a very tornado for speed, which it was not. Hounds ran
merrily over a county which ought, if we dare predicate anything
about so uncertain and unknown an element, to be a superb
scenting line ; but hounds, this notwithstanding, dwelt three or
four times — two of them, 'tis true, were at roads — and the mere
fact that four or five heavy men who started indifferently caught

346 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

the pack by fair riding, and stayed with them, tells its own tale.
Therefore, in one respect I agree with the verdict that, " as to the
hunt itself, no finer one ever has been since that memorable one,
some five years ago, when Lord Spencer took his English tenantry
across, paying their expenses, and supplying them with drags and
lunch at Dunboyne." As a chase, I have seen many with this
pack that, in the criteria or elements which make up a fine run,
rank in every way higher. Several ladies rode parts of the run,
and rode right well. The roan horse so conspicuous on " the
Hatchet" day in Meath went as well to-day for several miles.
Another lady on a grey, going in her usual style of brilliancy and
directness, met with a misadventure at a bank ; but the grey that
stayed on jumping beautifully all through, carried Miss Hussey,
and I should think to that lady's thorough satisfaction. Lord
Cork, who was riding a good bay, a hunter of Lord Howth's, saw
the run admirably, and was pleased, as the most fastidious must
have been, with his Ward Union experience. Pity it was, perhaps,
that the Drawing-Room at the Castle prevented several ladies
from " assisting" at the gathering. For my own part, holding that
a perfect horsewoman of the right calibre, when well mounted, is
a beautiful sight as she skims over the country, I maintain that
Lady D. Boyle's absence from Dunboyne to-day marred the
symmetry of our play — of our opera, shorn, as it wasr of a prima
donna assoluta.

On the same day — much about the same hour — Mr. George
Brooke's harriers were discoursing beautiful music in the undula-
ting pastures round Hortlands and Newtown, and the flatter lands
near Donadea. It is no small praise, no little tribute of incense
to their owner and master, to record that one or two of the hardest-
riding men in the community elected this pack in preference to
the Ward Union hounds, when both were equally accessible. Such
is the fact, however, and their enterprise and contempt of rank,
fashion, and numbers were duly rewarded.

If time allows me, I will certainly pay an early visit* to the

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 347

neighbourhood of the Bush Farm, to take the true dimensions of
the timber jump which Lord Rossmore's black hunter carried him
over yesterday, including the water and slush (if any) at the
bottom. This horse had made himself a splendid reputation in
the hands of his late owner, Mr. M'Gerr; but few things attest a
big heart more thoroughly than facing a solid barrier of wood, out
of water, after a run of eight or nine miles. Glancing at the
obstacle from horseback, I may have over-estimated the height,
but I hardly think so.

The Meath hounds had a very large " Drawing-Room " or
" Castle " meet at Woodlands, on Friday, the brilliancy of which
was somewhat chequered by a dubious and damp morning. How-
ever, as it was, there was a goodly gathering of rank, fashion, and
numbers. No sport resulted till Kilrue was reached late in the
evening, when a fox broke away in sporting style, never hanging
for an instant, and gave the diminished field a very brilliant fast
gallop almost to Oldtown, coastways five miles I should think,
perhaps more — done very fast, specially the early stage.

In sending off an account of last Wednesday's proceedings
with the Ward Union hounds, I omitted to mention a number of
particulars and incidents, fearing to overcrowd your columns. So
the brilliant cannon made on Charley Brindley and his grey mare
by an impetuous, unrestrained horse and horseman, which lodged
him in the pocket of a deepish brook, and the untimely fate. of a
promising steeplechase mare, the property of a noble and popular
lord, were unsaid and unsung. The sequel of the latter contretemps
deserves a passing allusion. She was ridden by Clarke, the trainer,
a most careful, judicious man, and his lordship's answer to a letter
from him, full of sorrow for the accident, was characteristic : " If
you are not hurt, Clarke, I'm rather glad than otherwise, and
should not grieve much if a similar fate befel two others in training
for chasing/' by which I gather that the peer has trained off racing
and chasing — the theory and science of which he thoroughly under-
stands. I should also have stated that the deer of Wednesday was
a celebrity — Enfield.

348 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

XXIII.

" 'Mid lowering skies, o'ercast and tinged with red,
Sol, slowly rising, quits his ocean bed."

Woodlands lawn, meet at — Kilrue — Bellinter harriers — Dunshaughlin — Reisk
Gorse — Mr. Preston's stables and pack— Louth.

EARLY rising must be an admirable discipline, seeing it is so full
of mortification, not only to the flesh, but also to the spirit. I
have ceased to wonder that those happy few who have attained to
these pinnacles of virtue and good habits, should wear a some-
what Pharisaic air, and look down on the less gifted denizens of
Sleepy Hollow and dear Dreamland ! Well may they enlarge the
phylacteries of their admonitory prosings. They have the start of
us. They have caught the early worm ! They may talk to us
weaker vessels in a stern ex cathedra tone. It is always unfortunate,
I think, that nature should not be propitious unto those who,
lethargic by habit, temperament, and weakness of will, make
occasionally a mighty spasmodic effort to shake off dull sloth, and
so on. On Friday morning nature was not in a pleasant mood to
commune with. There had been a continuation of what one may
call the light flying frosts of the last week. Then succeeded an
abortive snowstorm, which slided imperceptibly into sleet. And
then, lastly, the genius of Ireland vindicated herself. Hibernia
Plorans wailed much and long, and draped herself in a sable livery
of inky clouds. Under these circumstances, many hundreds to
whom a meet of the Meath hounds at Woodlands is a. jour f trie

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 349

in their annual calendar, set out for the trysting-place. An itinerary,
which I should think veracious, tells me the distance to Woodlands
is about seven miles from Dublin, in a nor'-westerly direction — if
so, they are the briefest miles I ever travelled — more like the
French kilometer, to my thinking, than the drawling, never-ending
mileage of this island, which I should think, Fin Ma Coul, or some
giant of their days, invented for his own behoof.

" Those Irish miles, those Irish miles,
O how their slow-pac'd measure riles ! "

Woodlands itself is approached by two routes from the metro-
polis, the lower one winds in and out with the sinuous gliding
Liffey, which it borders, and from it a capital view is obtained
of a land flowing with strawberries and cream (in summer), the
sunny slopes and terraces extending from the upper ground by the
Phoenix Park, right down to the river's edge, or rather the road-
side ; the other is more enjoyable if you are riding, for it leads all
through the Phoenix Park — grandest of all city parks; to which the
Bois, the Central, the Prater, the Prado, the parks of Hyde or
Regent are mere toys ; and here you can indulge your hunter or
covert hack with a series of half-mile spins over short old turf, just
now in the primest "going" condition, to which advantage you
may add the fact that it seems considerably shorter. It was not
my fate to approach Woodlands by either of these picturesque
routes ; and coming suddenly into the park avenue from a country
by-road, I confess I was surprised at the amazing vehicular pro-
cession that was converging towards Lord Analh/s fine castellated
mansion, which, besides its great intrinsic beauties, has a special
interest to many a good sportsman and hard rider on either side
the Channel, in that it is indentified with Colonel the Hon.
Charles White, now, to the regret of many — grievously ill — and
forced to seek health under southern skies (his nephew, the Hon.
L. White is out to-day). The Earls of Carhampton once owned
this splendid park, whose hanging woods, wilderness of gorse,

350 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

lakes, and cascades, make it full of charming and most varied
vistas of beauty. It was then called Luttrellstown, and there is
a room in the castle in which 'tis said King John slept. Who
lorded it over these broad lands prior to them, 'twere hard to trace
now ; for the panorama of history shifted its scenes very quickly
in this neighbourhood, and Roderick O'Connor, the last king of
Ireland, and General Monk — to come to later times — were busy
with their men of war about here. Tradition points to a flour mill
under Woodlands as built on the site of one which went by the
name of the Devil's Mill, as having been erected by Shitan in the
dark hours of a single night. Whom have we here ? nay, rather
whom have we not? The park of 700 acres seems peopled. Dublin
is equitant and on wheels. I cannot attempt anything like even
an outline of the company — c'est plus fort que mot. Conspicuous,
however, on the greensward was the viceregal brake, with its four
stately brown horses and smart outriders. It held a large party of
ladies, among whom were the Marchioness of Drogheda, Lady
Powerscourt, Lady Dorothy Boyle, Lady Mildred Coke, and Lady
May Coke. There were aides-de-camp in waiting and aides o\it of
waiting. The Duke of Connaught did not show, but his equerry,
Captain Fitzgerald, \vas here, and I think he had mounted Captain
Crosbie. The Earl of Huntingdon has given himself a day's leave
of absence, and is surveying the Meath bitches from the back of a
very smart cob. Lord Rossmore has come from Culmullen ;
Lord Langford from Summerhill ; General Seymour is here from
the Curragh. The Inniskillings form a small field in themselves.
Their colonel, the Hon. C. W. Thesiger, and the senior major,
Billington, being both out ; Captain the Hon. T. Scott, Lord Clon-
curry, Mr. Charles Hamilton, General and Miss Irwin, Mr. Bellany,
Mr. Bayley, Mr. Love, Captain and Mrs. Davis, and several more
hail from Kildare. The horse talent of the metropolis is represented
by Messrs. M'Grane, Manly, M 'Donald, Hillier, Murphy Gavacan,
and I know not how many besides; while Mr. Schawel, of Vienna,
is ready for sport or business if so be his quick eye can see any-

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 351

thing good enough for the kings and kaisers of his clientele. The
Ward Union men are here in force, for they have no stag to chivy
to-day, having had a most prosperous by-day near Navan yester-
day, when Mr. Turbitt's drag-hounds and a few couple from Ash-
bourne found a truant stag at Dunmoe, and hunted him hard for
thirty-seven minutes, till he was fain to take refuge in Stakillan,
where he fought fiercely before he yielded his liberty to Jem
Brindley and his assistant ; nor should I forget the fourth estate
and its representatives.

" The ' special's ' eyev in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n ;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The form of things unknown, the special's pen

Turns them to copy, gives to airy nothings

A local habitation and a name."

The coverts of Woodlands are run through, but if their fox has
not seen the list card, as some aver foxes do, he has heard the
grinding of wheels for three-quarters of an hour, and the prancing
of innumerable horsemen ; so he has vacated their haunts, and we
too now pass on to Hollywood Rath, three or four miles distant —
often a sure find, to-day foxless, but not foodless or wineless.
Here a fresh array of sportsmen turn up — men whose experience
told them they were not likely to have the run of the season from
Woodlands. The day brightens, the air is warm and muggy, and
altogether things look far more like hunting in comfort than
a couple of hours ago. Ballymacarney is our next point of in-
vestigation— a splendid gorse, but requiring a great deal of
drawing. The last time we were here " we made ante-chamber,"
as the Gauls say, to a most reluctant home-sick fox for an hour or
so, who mocked us at last by emerging for a field or two, and
then retiring to his fortress. That day the weather was fearful.
To-day the waiting was very bearable, the air was so spring-like,
and the hounds were so full of tongue in the gorse that every
moment we expected the signal, and it does come at last — a bank

352 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

and ditch are jumped or crept up, and two fields are galloped over,
when our fox is viewed stealing back. There are a good many
footpeople between him and his gorse, and they do all they can to
cut him off; but his point is made good notwithstanding, nor will
he leave even after half an hour's more dusting through the thicket.
His vixen has come back too, and here they mean to stay. Like
MacMahon in the Malakoff, id je suis et fy reste was the watch-
word of each, and they carried it out, wearing out our master's
patience. Half an hour more sees a long train trotting along the
well-known causeway to Kilrue Gorse, which is looked upon as
a certain find ; nor did it either disappoint or detain us ten
minutes. Away they flash in purple and white and black over the
green fields towards Kilrue ruins long before the tail men (of
whom I was one) get into the covert field. To gallop back over
the causeway and cut in with them, if they turned to the right,
seemed the wisest course. I tried it, with bad effect, my horse
slipping on the greasy stones, and giving his rider and himself
a wrench. The ruins are past by a select few now, but no sign of
hounds or horsemen is visible. I see some footprints, so galloping
on, jumping a few singles, at last I get near them in Fleenstown ;
but I have gone too fast to put on an extra spurt here, and they
seem going faster than I can now. Some larch-covered little
knolls appear on the left hand ; will the fox try them ? How
selfish it is, doubtless, to long for a check ; but how fervently we
pray for one ! None, however, is forthcoming, and the Ashbourne
road is now reached ; a small hedge and ditch leads out of it into
a large grass field known as the Moated Field, down its length
we gallop, jump into, or gate it into, a by-road, pass by the chapel
of Donoughmore, follow Macadam's pathway for a few hundred
yards, jump a stone-faced bank, to find ourselves in a valley
through which flows a stream known as the Broad Meadow Water,
which seems to have two or three branches. The first is wired,
only the strands have been pulled down in a convenient spot, the
next requires force, and causes delay, and now fording the brook

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 353

we wind up a furzy glen, over which I watched stag-hounds hunting
beautifully some six or seven weeks ago (the scene just looking
like a fox-hunt) on to the table land ; above this there is a check
of a few moments. This is Greenoge, very familiar to Ward
Union men, and then fast and slow the line leads on to Fieldstown,
and, I believe, close to Oldtown, where the pack were stopped,
owing to the late hour and distance from the kennels. A stone-
faced bank just at the end emptied one or two good saddles ; .but
of this latter part I cannot profess to give any account, having
stopped near the wired brook, finding my horse very lame ; nor
did I see any of the run, save in a diminishing- perspective. I
fancy, though not very long (five or six miles), it will be held
a very good one, and I think the bit from Kilrue to Donoughmore
Chapel, or even to the furzy glen, was brilliantly fast. Some
fifteen or eighteen men alone stayed on to the close out of the
vast number at the gathering point, among them the master,
Mr. Dunville, Lords Rossmore and Langford, Mr. Trotter and
Messrs. Butler, Chapman, Loyd, Rose, Bayley, Thunder,
M'Donough, Captain P. Butler, and Mr. Kennedy. Curiously
enough, the following day found some of our party pursuing
a flying stag in much the same tract of country ; for, on Saturday,
the icth inst, one of the most gloriously fine days we have been
vouchsafed hitherto, the Ward Union hounds went forth from their
kennels to meet a large throng of carriages, coaches, and riders
by the ninth mile-stone on the Dublin road. When I say coaches,
there were possibly two or three, but I can only speak from
observation of one, that of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, which was
pretty fairly filled ; but of riders there was a very large number.
The programme of the day was to enlarge the deer (a red one)
close by the kennels ; so we rode right through the yard at
Ashbourne, and in the very next field the hounds started off at
score, as if they were going to take us to the village of Bally-
madun; but a sharp turn at right angles brought us to a road
where there was a delaying fence ; across it, and over about a mile

2 A

354 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

or rather more of sound grass lancj, very irregularly fenced. Soon
after this we gained a view near another road, the boundary fences
of which had a depleting effect on our plethoric field ; and then
we got into rather a nice bit of grass country, which for this year
rode marvellously light and springy; now Oldtown village being
passed on the left, a beautiful tract of light grass trends on
seawards, Lambay Island rears its tall form out of the ocean right
in front of you ; and to tell you of your whereabouts, supposing
you are somewhat de payst, like myself, the white steam from
a locomotive floats away on the thin air current, and this proves
that we are on the verge of the northern line. At this point
I retired from the fray, having the prospect of a very long ride
homewards ; but I learnt next day that pursuit was carried on with
unslackened vigour to a point near Balriggan, double the distance,
and a good deal more than I had travelled myself, and that about
twenty-five saw the finish right well, among whom was a Louth
lady, whose steering in a very intricate country (to use mild
language) elicited much praise from my informant.

Friday was, I hear, very propitious to a small field of about
thirty, who met the Bellinter harriers at Scurlockstoun, a place not
far from Larracor, of fox-hunting and Diaconal celebrity. Fortu-
nate in meeting a stout hare at once, a traveller possibly, they
took him or her on by Miltown and Bragganstown to Kilcarty,
thence into Dunsany Park by the Black Lodge, as 'tis called, and
there a fresh hare interrupted the even tenor of the pursuit for
a few minutes ; but the mistake was soon righted, and the
bitches drove their quarry on to Batter John, and then to Kilteel,
which place proved fatal to this good hare's powers of endurance.

Few of hare pursuits have exceeded this run of Friday last in
brilliancy this season or any other season. Those familiar with
the country make this chase about eight miles, done in a little over
the hour; and men whose experience ranges over many packs
extol it as a very fine performance. On the map it measures well,
and confirms the statements made about its distance. On the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 355

whole it was a white-stone day, if not the very whitest in the acta
of this beautiful pack. They had some more hunting in the
evening, but not worthy of record.

My programme for Monday, the i2th, was, I confess, an
ambitious one, involving much travelling, and depending for its
fulfilment on a happy combination of circumstances.

The Meath hounds met at Bellinter ; a lawn meet, sure to be
fashionably and numerously attended ; and where detaining in-
fluences, in the shape of a self-imposed necessity of visiting a
beautiful interior and possibly wandering on to the breakfast-room,
promised at least a quarter of an hour's law. My wish and
intention was to visit Bellinter early, spend some time in the
kennels there, join the Meath hounds, and see the first page of its
day's diary carried out in action ; then, cantering along some five
miles of turf sidings, reach Gerrardstown Gate in time to cast my
lot in with the Ward Union hounds, who were told off for that
fixture at 1.30 p.m. The precise punctuality of the stag-hounds
was the rock ahead, on which I feared my intentions were likely
to founder. As it fortuned, I may say, like the Yankee young
lady when asked how she liked a certain very grand concert, " I
guess there was nary a hitch in the machinery."

Beginning with the morning, nothing could well have been
more discouraging. A gale, rain-laden, was blowing hard from the
west, and the vestiary barometer certainly pointed to overalls,
leggings, and a rough-and-tumble plough-country get-up. By
7 a.m. things mended a bit, and faith in the shepherd's saw, "rain
at 7, fine at n," was a flattering unction to cheer one on the long,
straight, and somewhat dreary road between Dunboyne and Bel-
linter ; which, however, if tradition be reliable, is rich in points of
historical interest and illustration of the earlier annals of our island,
civil and ecclesiastical. As our early friend and foe Horace says,
Sed non nunc erit his locus. Bellinter has been happily reached,
the kennels and stables there visited, of which we will hope to
say something by-and-by. Just now the signs and tokens of a

3$6 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

populous meet fill the eye and absorb our attention; a word or
two of preliminary description will clear the way. Bellinter, Mr.
Preston's residence, is a fine square stone building, with wide
wings, entered by a rather long flight of handsome steps. I
should think it dated from the era of the earlier Georges, and was
the country seat of the Lords of Tara, whom Mr. Preston repre-
sents. The views to the south and west embrace the Boyne and
its valley, with Bective just opposite the breakfast-room windows.
In front is a very spacious court-yard, and beyond it the level
park, girt by a wide belt of old timber, while in its centre is a
private racecourse marked out by white posts. Tara, of poetic
fame, which Moore's threnody has made a household word to so
many, rears its gentle elevation just beyond the park; while,
fringing the Boyne, a little beyond Bellinter, are Ardsallagh and
Dowdestown demesnes. The court-yard is now choke-full of
carriages and led horses ; two strong currents are setting ' in
opposite directions, one to the buffet and breakfast-room, the
other outwards. Among the absentees for several weeks from
the Meath hunting field was the Marquis of Headfort — he is here
to-day — and so are Lords Howth and Langford, Lady Wallscourt
and Lady E. Stanhope, Lieut. -Colonel Fraser, V.C., General
Herbert and party, Lady Stourton and party, Mr. Trotter, Mr.
Howard, Captains Kearney, M'Calmont, Smith, Davidson, Colt-
hurst, and Lowe; the Messrs. Tiernan from Louth, and any
number of Meath's sons and daughters, including Miss Waller,
Mr. and Mrs. Garnett, Major and the Hon. Mrs. Donaldson,
Major and Mrs. Johnson, Mr. and Miss Winter, Mr. and Mrs.
Briscoe. The half of an hour I hoped for has been thinned to well-
nigh thirty minutes, pleasantly spent I am sure by many and most
of our assembly, for the day has changed for the better, and is now
rainless and comparatively still. A fox is found in the woods
near the Balsoon Gate very quickly ; he very considerately swings
past the house of Bellinter and the Kennel Woods, giving the lady
gallery a good view of the proceedings ; circles round to the

HIBERNIA VENATICA. 357

Lismullen entrance, and, crossing some water meadows, re-entered
Bellinter, and in his second exodus beat the pack out of scent
near Killmessan station. Dowdestown was the second draw, and
I left them approaching its confines — having a very scanty margin
of time left for my canter to Gerrardstown Gate. Before leaving
Bellinter, let me record rather a smart riposte of a noble lord in
the field to-day. There is a colony of peafowl at Bellinter, who
seem to increase and multiply exceedingly, spite of the foxes in
their vicinity. Bad tenants for villas and places on a small scale,
they are beautiful as a garden in motion when they have ample
scope and large buildings to set them off, as here. To-day I saw
no peahens about, so I suppose they were better occupied ; but
the peacocks were strutting about everywhere, and spreading their
tails out like fans. A certain light cavalry captain, whom we look
on as the glass of fashion and mirror of sartorial neatness, whose
appointments are always faultless, whose horses are most work-
manlike, suddenly rode into the stable-yard, and, like Japanese
fans, outspread I know not how many peacocks' tails, to the
confusion and terror of a handsome young horse he was riding.

He had just finished his peacock story, when Lord cut in

with, "They were jealous of you, P.! depend on't, they were
jealous of you ! " Before setting off for Gerrardstown presently,
I should mention that this pack had a capital hunting run yester-
day from Balrath, two rings round the huge fields of the place,
then a break into the country leading on towards Rathmore, then
a turn into Allenstown, and a finish at the Hill of Faughan.

A very liberal road is that leading from Lismullen (Sir J.
Dillon's) Park to Gerrardstown Laurels fox-covert, with good
sidings, on which you might almost train a chaser. Their pre-
sence enabled me to be in ample time for the stag-hounds, with
five minutes to the good to change horses and look about. A
large meet it was, but almost exclusively of horsemen, for the
carriage element was conspicuously absent. I shall not give a list
even of the notables I can recollect, merely remarking that the

358 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

3rd Dragoons and Inniskillings were in strong force, and that
the hard-riding element was prevalent. In a few minutes we learn
that our object to-day was to catch, if possible, a truant deer, who
had been at large for many weeks and had wandered off from
Moyglare to Kilbrew, where he was last seen. The deer cart
was in attendance in case we missed the outlaw, so we may be
said to have had two strings to our metaphorical bow. Pleasant
paths through wide pastures led us to Kilbrew ; and we had just
reached the rustic bridge which spans the brook by the stick
covert and plantation, when Charley Brindley's quick eye caught
a glimpse of our deer just outside the grove of trees. Hounds
were clapped on at once. We have a mile or so of grass gallop-
ing, without any special necessity for jumping, as there is, strange
to say, a line of open gates for the entire distance. Then we get
among inclosures. Hounds are running fast, and we are con-
fronted soon by a very large bank and brook, which a steady,
well-trained, and rather sticky horse would do far better and safer
than a bold, high-couraged, flying hunter, for it seems too large to
cover at a single spring. Presently I see Mr. M'Gerr on the far
side of it, with the pack all round him. I fear his intrepidity was
but ill rewarded, as I think the move only led to an even more
difficult and bigger obstacle. We who decline to follow his lead,
have the alternative of a quasi ravine, which cannot be jumped,
and can only be descended by a sort of Toboggining process,
with which horses in this country should and ought to be familiar,
ere they can be termed " hunters." Jem Brindley gets over this
chasm first ; some wait for their turn, others gallop round, to cut
in presently. After a mile or two we are trotting through the
main street of Dunshaughlin, our deer having skirted it to the
left, crossing a bit of swampy land, not quite safe for riders, I
fancy. Then we gallop across the lands of Newtown, cross the
Navan line, and are streaming away, apparently bound for Piper's
Hill ; when we find that our deer has turned to the right, run over
the shoulder of Cultromer Hill (a very small elevation it is), and

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 359

dipping into the valley, has crossed the by-road from Culmullen
and Batterstown j thence it is about a mile or a mile and a half
over an easy grassy line to " the Hatchet," where he turned sharp
to the right, was pursued to Mulhussey, though not at express
pace, and here, owing to some wrong information from a native,
acted on by the staff, the clue was totally lost. It was, in my
opinion, a very fine pursuit over a splendid line, the which, if a fox
could be induced to travel twice in his lifetime in front of a pack,
he ought to be made free of every hen-roost and pheasant-covert
in the county. What prevented the last five or six miles of it
being quite first-class was a fact which I only learnt the day after,
namely, that two or three hard-riding men, whose experience ought
to have made them more considerate to their fellows, and whose
riding prowess requires no new proofs, having been temporarily
thrown out by some mischance or other, met two couple or so of
the hounds who were leading a long way ahead of the body of the
pack, by a road or railway bridge (I forget which at the moment),
and incontinently went away with them, to the detriment of our
line, who were with the main body of the pack some fields in their
rear. They took on their deer a mile or two further than the
point where the pack threw up — by Moyglare and the Police
Barrack — till " the Duke," whom I should have introduced
formally to your readers before this, took to a stream and became
thoroughly master of the situation.

I learnt the day after that by my rapid spurt to Gerrardstown
Gate, I had six to four the best of the fun, the Meath proceedings
having been marked by mediocrity and tameness. Lismullen
foxless to-day (for a wonder) ; Slator's Gorse tenanted 'tis true,
but by a most domestic, nostalgic type of fox ; while the hunting
from Walshe's Gorse, towards Somerville, backwards and forwards,
though edifying to hound men, was not sufficiently animating to
please a field so fastidious as the Meath.

Vento rubet aurca Phoebe I This a certain gentleman rendered
" Phoebe blushes for the wind." Very true and literal no doubt;

360 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

hardly, however, explanatory of the poet's idea, which I take it
was that when wind was imminent the golden orb of the moon
became suffused with red ; for the present, however, the literal
version will suit our meaning best, and we will hope that Phoebe,
none other than Diana of the chase, has incarnadined her brows
and bowed her classic head at the tumult of rushing winds and
passionate gusts which have prevailed for many hours, with hardly
an interval of pause or respite. There have been showers, but
not heavy enough to lull the wind force, and 'tis needless to
remark that the plague of winds has been most hostile to hunting
(by the way, the New York Herald foretold it most accurately).
On the morning of the i3th inst. the wind, which had been on
the riot all night long, did not appear in the least subdued or
worn out, but there was a black horizon all around, which looked
as if rain would be our portion ere many hours, and rain of the
heaviest kind. As the day wore on, however, the rain menace
disappeared, blue became the ruling colour above, the sun shone
out quite in strength at intervals, and but for that almost ceaseless
leonine wind, we could have said many pleasant things about the
day and its dispensations.

The Meath hounds were announced as meeting at Dun-
shaughlin on Tuesday, the i3th, a non-hunting Ward day. A
state ball at the Castle on Monday night has in itself paved the
way for a large accession to the ordinary Meath field, for the only
rival is the Kildare meet at the flag-staff, Curragh Camp ; neither
comparable in distance, convenience, country, nor surroundings,
and moreover more dangerous (to hats at least) in such wind-
storms as we are now experiencing. My Dunshaughlin expe-
riences do not carry me back very many years; but certainly
I never saw a smarter meet in the county than to-day's, and the
lateness of the hour of drawing — high noon — enabled one to take
leisurely surveys of the gala field. H.R.H. the Duke of Con-
naught is to the fore with his equerry, Captain M. Fitzgerald,
Captain Bagot, and officers of the Rifle Brigade. The 3rd

HIBERNIA YEN A TIC A. 361

Dragoon Guards send Captain Parke, Mr. Hartigan, Mr. Ward-
rop, and Mr. Dundas, the latter none the less cheery though His
Lordship did not win the International at Croydon, as many
hoped; of the Inniskillings are Captains Bloomfield, Mills, Mr.
Ellis, and others. There is what the Yankees call a "ring" of
ladies, which term the pleasant gossiping author of " The Two
Americas " explains by supposing that " 'tis because there is no
end to them." From Louth, Dublin, and Meath do they muster,
beautifully mounted for the most part, and faultlessly appointed ;
among the district visitors or visitors to the district being Lady
Macnaughten, the Hon. Mrs. Donaldson, Mrs. Osborne, the
Misses Smith, the Misses Gradwell, Miss Coleridge, Mrs. Green-
hill, Miss Hussey; Major-General Herbert is here with Captain
Crosbie ; half the Dublin staff is in the field, and not a few Ward
Union pursuers. Kildare contributes its quota. Lord Howth
shows his loyalty to hunting by turning his back on his salmon
fishing in the Blackwater and Boyne, where his keeper killed a
35lb. fish yesterday or the day before (I forget which). Lord
Rossmore has done his friends a kindness by giving convincing
proof that he is still sound in wind, neck, and limb, though the
two latter have been so frequently imperilled of late. Fair
women, brave men, good horses; give us now but a resolute
point-making fox in the Poor-house Gorse, and we shall be con-
tent in spite of this tempest, which makes us keep our heads at
a most unpleasant angle, lest a capful of wind should make us
hatless for the day. While on the subject of hats, I may mention
that a gentleman of the 3rd Dragoons showed a noble disregard
to his headgear yesterday when hunting with the Ward Union
hounds, for he lost his somewhere about the first large fence, and
rode some eight or nine miles in the best style without it. To-day
the most sensibly dressed head I saw was a young gentleman's,
who wore one of those old-fashioned sort of travelling nightcaps
which tie under the chin and cover the ears well. I suppose his
hat had been blown to foreign parts early in the day. The

362 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Poor-house Gorse was soon vocal, but whether a dog or vixen
was chopped there I cannot say. A few fields reached, fortunately
by open gates, bring us to Lagore. We search its clumps of
trees, but search in vain, so the body Venatic m.oves on in long
file to the Reisk Gorse. Here the find was quick as a flash of
thought ; the departure nearly as rapid. Green fields of large
area ; open gates worthy of Saxondom ; a dip down into Kilbrew
valley; a brook and jump if you haven't patience to go for a
bridge ; three or four wide grass fields (on ground with the
inclination dead against you) ; then you reach a road, cross it,
and run parallel to it for a few fields ; then a return over the
same grassy hill and valley, a wide-sunk fence to jump, or avoid
if you can, and you are at the ruins of Kilbrew House, which, as
the Yankees say, must have been " quite a place " in old times ;
the offices are in semi-ruin, the old garden wall is in fair order.
The hounds hunt up to the latter, and there all trace of our fox
vanishes mysteriously, and no casting regains the clue. He must
have lain down somewhere while the pack, who had been driving
at tremendous pace, flashed over him ; for fifteen minutes hounds
ran extremely fast, and scent seemed superb. The remainder of
the day may be dismissed in a line or two. Corballis, Corbalton,
Gerradstown, blank ; some larking and tumbling about, in which
a noble peer was the choragus; an early dispersion trainwards
and homewards. Much of the gossip — I should say horse gossip
of hunting fields — is now about the imminent Red-coat races
which loom in the nearer and remoter distances : remoter in
Meath, where the friendly contest will come off towards the close
of April ; nearer in Kildare, where the date is fixed for, I think,
the 4th proximo. I understand H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught
will be an actor in the latter, and I fully expect to see one, at
least, of his hunters play a prominent part in the light-weight
class. In addition to these prizes for hunters, who are still in
possession of the attributes of soundness and freshness (not " the
wild freshness of morning "), I understand that there will be a

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 363

repetition on a better scale of the spring one-day meeting at the
Maze, which gave so much pleasure last year to multitudes from
Belfast and the surrounding district, combined or falling in with
the Killultagh harrier Red-coat races. Lord Cole gives a valuable
cup for genuine hunters carrying 1531. each, two miles on the
flat; Lord E. Hill's generous patronage is directed to a lighter
class of hunters. Altogether there seems every reasonable pro-
spect of the hunting season of 1876-77 expiring brilliantly, and
not waning into inanition.

The capital invested annually in hunting in our islands now
amounts to millions. I leave statisticians to squabble over the
precise figures, as in such magnificent proportions a few thousands
more or less does not matter much. My second postulate will
be conceded freely, I fancy, by men of experience and common
sense — that is, that hunting over grass is the cream of sport for
men, hounds, and horses. Hunting over ploughs and clays is in
comparison but mudlarking — an inferior pastime, slower and less
spirit-stirring —

" As sunlight unto moonlight, or as water unto wine."

It is far more expensive in the wear and tear of horseflesh, far
more injurious to the farmer ! Having laid down these axiomatic
platitudes, let me state that in a very short run in Meath on
Monday with the fox-hounds my horse never trod a bit of plough,
nor did he ever leave turf in the afternoon in a run of some eight
or nine miles with the stag-hounds (half a mile or so of voluntary
road work being excepted). During a long, desultory, bad day
with the Meath fox-hounds (yesterday), relieved only by a twenty
minutes' gallop of great pace and brilliancy, your scribe cannot
recollect having been off turf for a moment, running or drawing.
These are pregnant facts, and your readers may possibly find
profit in their application.

' ' Fill high the bowl with Samian wine !

(Bordeaux for choice)
A land of plough shall ne'er be mine ! "

364 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

Wednesday, the i5th, was ushered in with showers and wind,
but the afternoon was beautifully clear, crisp, and enjoyable.
Those who went, like myself, to meet the Ward Union hounds at
Rathbeggan had their journey for nothing, as the pack did not
meet, in consequence of the death of Mr. Maxwell, of Cruise Rath.
Known personally to many of the readers of The Field, and, I
believe, loved by as many as knew him — a master of harriers
within a few miles of such a metropolis as Dublin, where land is,
of course, much enhanced in value for dairy and grazing purposes,
his hounds were always welcomed with whatever field they brought.
A number of friends recently presented Mr. Maxwell with his
portrait, surrounded by a few couple of his favourite hounds,
sitting on his most confidential hunter.

Those who aver that Ireland is not a country where finish is
appreciated, ought to visit the kennels and stables of Bellinter, a
place to which I have already introduced your readers in this
letter. Overlooking the Boyne valley, with drainage naturally
good and perfected by care, the most fastidious might spend an
hour or two here without finding out, save through the ear, the
presence of twenty-five or thirty couple of hounds in their benches
and lodgings close to him. A laurelled walk of a few hundred
yards leads to them from the house, and two well-burnished
brasses, with " Kennels " and " Letters " on a postern, arrest the
eye at once. No need for whip or overcoat, as Suter, the hunts-
man, draws each bitch ; she " suffers herself to be admired," then
proceeds leisurely to the next lodgings, or outer court, to join the
other objects of criticism. Mr. Preston has been years in getting
this pack to its present high standard, and many of the smartest
fox-hound kennels have sent him drafts after drafts of their smaller
hounds (bitches), and these have been weeded and weeded till
none but the best and fittest remained. Hence they are harriers
by profession, but fox-hounds of the purest pedigree by race ; and
so well have they entered to hare, that few packs in Ireland can
show more trophies this season. Naturally their pace is very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 365

good, or men like Lords Howth and Rossmore, Captains Candy
and Dundas, would not throw in their lot with them — very
beautiful singly, it is as a pack they should be seen ; so I will
only remark that the Carlow and Island Brilliant of three seasons'
experience, Bella of one, the White Rose, the Black Sociable,
with Wistful and Priestess, struck me as gems. After a glance
at the benches and their occupants, you will find a very comfort-
able sitting or smoking room, writing materials, sporting prints,
and no " compound of vile smells " to affect enjoyment. In Suter,
Mr. Preston has a most able adjutant. The stables are full of
hunters of the highest class and type — blood, bone, shape, and
performance being qualifications without which no horse enters
these boxes, or, if an impostor finds his way there on false pre-
tences, he is very soon eliminated. Grey is Mr. Preston's
favourite colour, hence the fact that the boxes are full of greys,
and that only a single bay catches the eye as you go round. A
very singular-looking horse he is too, some seventeen hands high,
with shoulders so far thrown back that the saddle space seems,
if possible, too small ; once, however, you see him move, the
perfection of the machinery is apparent, and a gallop on him is
like rushing through the air in one of Howard's easy chairs. Snow
Queen is conspicuous for her length, everywhere combined with
power; her fired hocks do not impair her looks one bit. Star
Shower is stronger and compacter, perhaps, and more suited for
choice to a high-banked country. Lazy Larry saw service in the
south among stone-faced banks, which left their marks on him ; he
is a grand weight-carrier. One or two greys that Mr. Preston
drafted recently are very high-class horses ; one of them, Fairy
Queen, has raced very fairly, and will probably do so again. The
stables, forming the left wing of the house, with their Titanic stone
pillars and high vaulted roof, look as if they had been built by
one of the Moguls for his white elephants, so solid are they and
capacious.

Defective earth-stopping spoilt promising sport in Louth. On

3 66 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

the 6th they met at Collon, but the fox of the place got too good
a start for the scent which prevailed. Skedog gave them a very
good eighteen minutes by Shanliss and Drakistown to Curracon,
where the fox went into a burrow. Digging produced a brace —
a dog and vixen, and a few precious moments were lost in putting
the pack on to the former, who occupied them till nightfall. From
Townley Hall they had a sharp twenty-two minutes to Rossine
on the Qth ; a Louth fox was killed at once. Mellifont furnished
a brace. They went away well with one over Louth Hill into
Townley Hall and through the park, when he, too, got into a
burrow. The Curraghmore hounds seem to have had another fine
gallop from Rathgormack on the i3th, and a shorter one from
Ballyneil in the afternoon.

The Kildare hounds, after a week of very poor sport, had a
capital run from Gingerstown Gorse on Tuesday, to which I must
refer in my next.

The Westmeath hounds, after a moderate morning, had a most
animating and exciting gallop from Galston Park on Monday, the
i Qth, particulars of which I must send you in my next.

The Ward Union hounds had a capital second run on Patrick's
evening from Ashbourne to the Naul, and a very pleasant circular
gallop on Monday. Space prevents my enlarging on any of them
here.

HI BERN I A V EN ATI C A. 367

XXIV.

' ' Ah, how shall I in song declare,
The riders who were foremost there ?
A fit excuse how shall I find
For every rider left behind ? "

Trim and Trimlestown — Mullingar meet — Bellavilla — Bill Ryan — The
dancing 6th.

" THE third day comes a frost, a killing frost," says England's
great Cardinal through the mouth of Shakespeare, and the words
are apposite to our present situation here ! We have had a few
light, beautiful days, too crisp and gaudy perhaps for hounds.
The country has dried up with a rapidity perfectly marvellous, to
the great joy of husbandmen. The. brimming rivers have shrunk
back to their old bounds. Dry leathers and tops immaculate
have rejoiced the hearts of valets; broader horizons have ex-
panded to our view. The grass lands have cast off their slough
of winter and autumn, and glittered once more in emerald hues.
It almost seemed like a new heaven and a new earth inchoate,
warm with the breath of Favonius, and vocal with the spring
carolling of myriads of birds ; when a change — a portentous
change — came over the face of nature. On Thursday late
travellers were buffeted sorely by pitiless hailstorms. Then came
a sharp frost, and at 7 a.m. on Friday snow was falling fast. The
Meath hounds were proclaimed in Mr. Kelly's Hunting Calendar
as due at Trim station on Friday, the i6th inst. Road or rail,

368 HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A.

which will you choose? Both are almost equally convenient.
For my own part I chose the paths of Macadam and a good hack ;
but then I was starting some nine or ten miles (Irish) on the Trim
side of Dublin. The denizens and occupants of the gay capital
naturally chose the latter, and a very large convoy set out from
the Broadstone terminus about 9 a.m., setting down its load at
Trim a little past n o'clock; and, as the distance is just about
twenty-five miles, the shareholders of the line have no right,
I think, to complain that their engineers take pattern by Jehu,
and drive furiously or at a reckless pace. By the time I had
hacked nearly half the distance, the snow ceased on the plains ;
but in front the Cavan hills were well powdered, while behind the
eastern barrier of mountains gleamed one white mass of ap-
parently newly fallen snow. Presently the sun shines forth in
strength, and " Hark, hark ! the lark at Heaven's gate sings."
Bleating lambs, flushes of primroses, blossoming gorses, caucuses
of crows, an odd sower going forth to sow — these and a
thousand other things tend to remind us that Spring is upon us ;
that the pastime of princes will soon be suspended by natural
causes. Be carpe diem our motto now, or we shall regret, with
the unavailing regret of vacillators, our lost opportunities. We
are now in Trim, under the shadow of its feudal fortresses, yet
reminded by an air of pervasive comfort and bien-ttre that the
Trimmers (I don't know what other title to give them) are not
content to live in a storied past, but have due regard for present
comfort and prosperity. The aspect of one or two of the peopled
streets shows us that a great many are like-minded with ourselves
as to seizing every hunting opportunity that presents itself. The
flash of purple lights up the vistas, and beauty equitant and
beauty charioteering are gladdening the ancient city. Whom
have we here ? Heading the squadron of arrivals from the station
comes his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, mounted on
a clever-looking bay horse, who, I believe, won first-class honours
in the southern show-yard at Cork. His equerry, Captain Maurice

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 369

Fitzgerald, rides the " Kearsley roan," who has proved himself at
home in all parts of Ireland. Next comes the Marquis of
Ormonde from Kilkenny, though, I fancy, not further than from
Dublin this morning ; he is riding a very symmetrical grey belong-
ing to H.R.H., who distinguished himself last year by winning
the Carlow Red-coat race for his then owner, Sir Clement Wolseley,
in hollow style. He does not belie his ancestry, paternal or
maternal ; the latter Arabian, the former derived through Lord
of the Isles. Here is Lord Randolph Churchill ; while Lady
Rosamond Churchill is again mounted on Colonel Eraser's chest-
nut winner, Famous, and another lady steers his grey cup winner.
Here is Colonel Eraser's yellow brake and most serviceable team,
with the well-known roan wheelers, well handled among those tor-
tuous streets by Capt. Chaine, late of the loth Hussars. Of course
it is full ; so is Lord Howth's carriage, which comes in view now.
Mrs. Dunville's pair of brown horses represent perpetual motion,
for they seem to follow the hounds everywhere, and to thrive on
excitement. Lord Clanmorris and his sister, the Hon. Miss
Bingham, are riding two charming chestnuts. Lord Rossmore
is on one of the same colour, of rare power and type. Captain
Colthurst follows colour with a smart mare that has paid her way,
racing very handsomely. Mr. Hone rides a brown mare that
I hear the foreigners covet greatly, and I admire their good
judgment Captain Beecher rides a handsome son of William the
Conqueror's. Captain O'Neal is riding Jonah, one of the neatest
sons of Outcast to be seen, a large winner between flags, and a
very perfect light-weight hunter. Mrs. Hanley rides a very fine
bay horse. The Messrs. Carew (three) are always admirably
mounted, and so is Mr. Brown, of Elm Grove, and Mr. Rose,
from Limerick. Captain Chaine rides Regalia, a very handsome
chestnut from Colonel Eraser's stable. I have mentioned a few
celebrities among horses and their riders to give an idea of the
character of the meet, which, though a large one, was not by any
means a monster one, or over populous. Meath mustered strong

2 B

370 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A,

there; so did the Dublin Garrison, represented by the 3rd
Dragoon Guards, the Inniskillings, and the Rifle Brigade; while
Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, Westmeath, Kildare, and I know
not how many more counties took part in the fray. The hands
of the town clock were nearing their junction at noon when we
set forth, bound for Moneymore Gorse, to which I have before
introduced your readers ; full then — it was empty now. So,
passing through a gentleman's grounds (Riverstown by name, on
the slope down to the Boyne Water), we come to New Haggard
Gorse, a small, thick parallelogram, where a fox has harboured
for two seasons, and has baffled the pack hitherto, never having
given the semblance of a run. To-day was his first and last — but
I anticipate events. Carefully drawn by Goodall, and with much
energy, the fox breaks away ; but a fisherman is a lion in his path,
so he retraces his steps, and it looks as if New Haggard Gorse
was doomed to be non-productive of sport. However, in five
minutes he is tallied away in a line parallel to the banks of the
river, towards Mr. Odlam's large mills. Scent seems much livelier
than might have been expected, and our fox has -to run a couple
of circles pretty sharp before he crosses the Boyne, which is deep
here, I understand, and unfordable. The nearest bridge is at
Trim, a mile or two distant ; but there is no help for it, so we
trot round very quickly. When the pack, however, are laid on
the fox's line, they can make nothing of it — barely owning it at
all. A knowledge of the country makes it pretty clear that he
has gone on to Trimlestown Gorse, and thither we go too, but by a
rather roundabout pathway. The hounds have no sooner touched
this fine covert than they are racing away. The tail men were
a long way in their rear, probably knowing nothing of the in-
stantaneous find and as rapid departure. A dwell for a minute
or two at a big double fence a few fields from the gorse, helps
them ever so little. Over the double it is, and then away at best
pace across a road. Who-whoop ! who-whoop ! they have rolled
him over by a telegraph post— I know not on what townland, nor

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 371

does it signify ; for Trim is very near, and there is the Trim and
Athboy branch line of railway in front to mark the topography.
A very sharp burst over a charming line ; it only wanted distance
to lend it enchantment. A second visit, and Trimlestown pro-
duced a second fox, who broke in an opposite direction, as if for
Clifton Lodge; but he was lost in a few fields, which a heavy
snowstorm of upwards of an hour's duration may account for.
"Through the hush'd air the whitening shower descends."

Patrick's Day in the morning generally becomes St. Silenus's
Night, just as the ballad we recollect in " Don Juan " tells us that
" Amundeville may be lord by day, but the friar is lord at night."
However, one very pleasant phase of the celebration of Ireland's
and more especially Heath's patron saint was a meet of the Ward
Union hounds at "the Ward." I expected a very plethoric
affair, but was agreeably surprised by finding only a manageable
field gathered together, the Kildare hounds at Rathcoole having
naturally depleted a good deal of the exuberant numbers whom
the calendar devotes to idleness and enjoyment this day.

The proceedings began by trotting a mile or two in the
Ashbourne direction, then turning into a farm to the left hand,
where the enlargement had taken place. Our deer's strong point
was speed, not directness. After a short »ng she set her face for
Fleenstown ; then turned round, leaving Kilrue to the right hand,
jumped the Dardistown Brook, brushed through some wooded
knolls— part of Kilbride lands, I believe — crossed a by-road, and
ran up over a nice bit of flat grass to Hollywood Rath, soon to
be captured at Dunmickney. The pace, after the preliminary
ring, was very good indeed. A second red deer was presently
enlarged by the kennels at Ashbourne, and took us at fair pace
nearly to Ballymadun village, crossed the road leading to the
Naul, and touched on Garristown Hill ; then, bearing to the
right, he made his point as straight as a good fox by Herberts-
town to Westown, where he committed, I hear, a quasi felo de se

372 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

by entangling his tines in a mill wheel, and there awaited capture
and the cart. Having ridden the first part of the run, let me
speak of that section with a grateful memory. I hear the second
part was even more brilliant ; by all accounts, Lord Rossmore saw
it as well as anybody out

On Monday the Westmeath executive invited all and singular
to meet the county pack at the barracks of Mullingar, the nearest
approach to a lawn meet in the vicinity of this midland capital.
Seeing that no Marquis of Mullingar inhabits a feudal keep over-
looking the good town in true baronial fashion, and that the lord
of the soil, Lord Greville, lives at a distance of several miles,
Mullingar accommodates itself wonderfully to the fitness of things
venatic. Like Rome in this respect, if in no other, it is ap-
proached by many roads — paths of iron and paths of Macadam.
Passengers from the west, from Gal way, Longford, Athlone,
Moate, the King's County, from Cavan, Sligo, Leitrim, Ros-
common, from Dublin, Meath, the Queen's County, and Kildare,
find themselves injected more or less simultaneously, at or about
1 1 o'clock a.m. on the platform of the busy station, and from the
station to the barracks is but a five minutes' drive in one of the
many cars ready to compete tumultuously for your patronage.
I do not speak from, authority, but I am inclined to think that
if the slowly revolving wheels of the Midland carriages were
tardier and more stately in their revolutions on one of these
hunting festivities at Mullingar, a latitude of fifteen or twenty
minutes would be accorded to the belated, seeing that time would
not hang very heavily in a well-found mess-room, such as that of
the ist Royals, now quartered at Mullingar, who have entered
well to Westmeath and its many-sided sports, and welcome the
habitues and casual sportsmen with true soldierly heartiness. On
the present occasion I am bound to speak with respect of the
exemplary punctuality of the Midland line ; it enabled me to take
a short drive into the good old town, which, though by no means
beautiful or picturesque in situation or architecture, yet wears an

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 373

air of solid bicn-ttre and wealth that many more pretentious cities
might envy. Its banks tell of wealth and commercial enterprise ;
its handsome ecclesiastical buildings tell of the due appropriation
of the harvest of commerce and agriculture ; its shops are
wonderfully good. Gordon's Ulsters (ought they not to be
Leinsters ?) are, I believe, the great original of that development
of sartorial comfort; Watson's saddles are proverbial through
Ireland ; Mrs. Carroll's hotel, the Greville Arms, commends itself
hugely to commercial men, who are no mean judges of creature
comforts, and to many scores of hunting and fishing men from all
parts of the world, who not unfrequently make it their base of
operations while in Ireland. Mullingar, I fancy, looked at its
very best this forenoon. A morning severely frosty and over-
spread with rime had brightened into a very glorious day, with a
sun positively warm — somebody said scorching ; the air was clear
as in Western America ; and in the translucent atmosphere every
bit of the surrounding landscape was mapped out before you with
the most vivid distinctness, as if seen through a magnifying lens.

Passing through the Fair Green, so well known to amateurs of
high-class horses, we come to the barracks, which are not a whit
less ugly or comfortless of aspect than most buildings of the sort
in Ireland, contrasting so unfavourably as they do with the more
modern and ambitious-looking poor-houses. There are about one
hundred horsemen gathered together, and some twenty cars and
carriages. Conspicuous among the latter is the Ballinagall landau
and Colonel Cooper's waggonette, on the box seat of which I
recognize that good sportsman so well known to his friends on
both sides of the Channel as Joe Radcliffe, the recent owner of
Salvanos and other good horses. Mr. Montague Chapman, the
M.F.H., is not out to-day, owing to a death in His family; so
Mr. R. Malone represents him — the Archon of the day, and a
most popular one ; needless to say, he is well mounted, for his
horses are celebrities, as they ought to be to fulfil his require-
ments. The Hon. Mrs. Malone is riding a very perfect huntress,

374 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

The Creole — so called, I suppose, because she is a " coloured
lady,'' the brown and black and mud stains on her coat giving her
a rather mottled appearance at this time of the year. A rare
combination of blood, substance, and activity, I have rarely seen
a more perfect lady's huntress than The Creole proves herself in
Mrs. Malone's hands. No meet near Mullingar would be com-
plete without the portly presence of its hospitable and witty
banker, Mr. W. Kelly, the life, soul, and promoter of all things
tending to sport and good fellowship ; and here is Mr. Kelly, with
undiminished shadow and substance, riding a very fine brown
horse, who has furnished into a pattern weight-carrier since last
year. Captain Fosberry is on a grand-stamped son of Hospodar ;
Captain Grant and Mr. O'Reilly are very well mounted. Half-a-
dozen of the Royals come out, among them Mr. Stephen Moore,
well known in his own county of Kildare. There are four or five
officers of the igth Hussars from Longford and Athlone, among
whom one recognized Messrs. Flood, Kenyon Stow, O'Connor
Henchy, and French. Mr. Stow's chestnut, one of Baron Roths-
child's stud, is a very high-class hunter, and his fencing struck me
as very neat and effective. Time and space forbid my glancing
further at the men and horses before us, so I will pass on to my
first impression of the hounds and staff. For the condition and
looks of the former, Matthews deserves a tribute of high praise.
I had not seen them for some months — nay, not since last year —
and the improvement in levelness and looks struck me at once ;
but work is their forte, and I have seen nothing this year more
effective and capable than this pack. Servants' horses are the
difficulty, and, to say the least, the weak point of most Irish
hunting establishments. It appears to me the strong point of the
Westmeath system. Matthews, the huntsman, was riding a bay
mare thoroughly up to and over his weight, while her performance
was very good. The same tale may be told of the mounts of the
two whips, Mason and Toope. They were fresh, fit hunters, a
bay and a chestnut, up to their respective riders' weights (one

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 375

rather over), and not requiring to learn their lessons painfully in
the hunting field. Among the field was Mr. R. Rennell — the late
master of the pack — on a grey cob.

We are in motion at last — rather late, too, for it is wearing on
for noon when we leave Mullingar behind us, with Lough Ennel
on our left hand and a thick bit of gorse at its edge — Kilpatrick
our destination. On the last occasion of my visiting this neigh-
bourhood the white horses were leaping over the perturbed surface
of this inland sea ; to-day it was a mirror. Then it held a fox ;
to-day it was blank. Mr. Lyon's park of Ladestown is the first of
the residences which fringe the western shores of Lough Ennel.
We drew the Lake Woods in vain, and were, I fancy, about to go
away, when there was a tally, and every one commences galloping
in a venire-ci-tcrre fashion. A few follow the flying pack through
the park. The majority elect a road parallel to them, and their
choice was a wise one, for the fielders get pounded directly, and
Mr. Brabazon gives his followers a lead over a nasty drop fence
into the road we are devouring so impetuously. Turning through
a gate, we here pass the Belmont and Keolton grounds, and
emerge into the country, to meet our first real obstacle in a brook,
not very wide, not very deep, not very formidable in any way,
save that it had rather bad spots of landing and taking off, and
saddles were emptied here rather alarmingly fast

" Good Lord ! to see the riders now

Thrown off with sudden whirl !
A score within the purling brook,
Enjoying early purl ! "

One of the whips' horses landed badly, and his rider is on his
back. An ecclesiastic charges it directly afterwards, on a capital
huntress of an impetuous turn, and misses his nether limbs by the
narrowest of margins. After this, for about a mile or rather more,
our track is over flat grass land, with fair banks and ditches, till
we enter Dysart, seemingly an old, deserted park, with some good
timber within its enceinte. The hounds are hunting steadily, and

376 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

at very fair pace, along a fence or hedgerow parallel to a road
for, I should think, a quarter of a mile, when up jumps a splendid
dog-fox before them — our quarry — as fresh as if he had not gone
some two or three miles already at great pace. For a few minutes
now it is a view through the park, till the fox disappears behind a
hedge, and we lose sight of him. Then follows a mile along the
lake shore to a plantation, where a dog of low degree inter-
venes, and our fox escapes through Ladestown to some district
unknown. Making our way next over a large double, which
proved that many of the horses out were well-educated hunters,
we pass by Lynbury, and arrive presently at the handsome park of
Gaybrook, Mr. Smyth's residence. Here the consensus of all
hunting men says a find is a certainty. They judge by past
experience, but to-day they are wrong, as we learn after twenty
minutes' careful exploration. Galston and Rochfort offer rival
attractions, but the show of hands is in favour of the former,
Lord Kilmaine's park, and thither we trot on, basking and coffee-
housing as we go in the pleasant sunshine. Our leaders have
gone on very sharply. We, the majority, have taken matters too
leisurely ; for presently, as I am getting to the point of a friend's
bon mot or anecdote, a stampede begins. They have found ; they
are off; so we gallop on in gloomy despair for half a mile or so,
as the pioneers and the pack have just jumped into a road, pause
there for a second or two, and resume their flight. A short cut of
a field or two now puts us on terms with the foremost and best.
Before us is a red peat moss of many acres ; beyond it Green
Hills, Captain Dames' sporting residence and kennels. Our fox
was probably headed here, for, after a loop, he leads us back into
the road, the avenue to which is over a low gate or a steep bank.
Here we come near a village, which somebody tells me is Mil-
town. A double, which looks worse than it really is, delays us a
moment or two, as it has one better spot in its extent than others,
which all seem to affect. Then, for two miles or so, with the
pack a hundred yards or more in front, we have a succession of

THE HONOURABLE M*s MALONE

HIBERXIA VENA TIC A. 377

charming singles, of fair hunting size, that you can race at. Pre-
sently we leave Enniscoffey church to the right hand, and gallop
over the broad grass fields of Claremont and Lemonstown. Here
the Hon. Mrs. Malone and The Creole were going in beautiful
form till, I think, they turned too much to the left, thinking the
fox had bent towards Galston again. In half a mile, as horses are
beginning to feel the severity of the pace, we are confronted by
a huge rampart — a boundary fence, known, I hear, as Tuite's
Double. It is very high, very safe, and for a fresh horse not too
formidable. With a tired hunter it is too much to ask — take your
twelve or fifteen stone off his back, and he might jump it Some
got over at once ; some had to wait and collect their horses ; a
few men rode it gallantly — amongst others Mr. Brabazon and, I
believe, Mr. Bond ; some found a way round it. At any rate, in
another half-mile or so, we are standing in various attitudes, lead-
ing horses about, at the corner of the Gaybrook Wood, into which
our fox has plunged. All agree that it has been a splendid
unchecked gallop over a beautiful line. Some say the last run,
from Galston or Gaybrook, I forget which — the run of the
season — was better. All concur, however, in giving high praise to
our chase of to-day.

Is it over yet ? Who knows ? Our hunters have now caught
their wind. Let us see by trotting on to either corner of the thick
square of woodland. They (the hounds) are " hunting strong,"
says a rustic ; adding something painfully grating about their being
at or near Mullingar by now. A small party of us, eight or nine,
now gallop on over some rather holding fields, jump a few fences,
drop into a road, gallop up a small hill, and there are the hounds,
not a field off, turning towards us. I believe we are passing
through Catherinestown. Mullingar is in front; beyond it the
wooded knolls of Knockdrin Park. For a mile or so we hold on
at a steady pace, when there is a pause for a second or two, till
Roadster, who strains back, I believe, to the Fitzhardmg Gains-
borough, and is a regular oracle, puts his brethren to rights. We

378 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

pass Clonmoyle, lately the residence of that good sportsman,
Mr. Joly, long the hon. secretary to the hunt — now, alas ! no more.
Who-whoop ! who-whoop ! An unguarded sewer, at the foot of a
large double, has robbed our pack of their prey.

I asked several men about the time of this fine chase. No one
seemed positive to a few minutes, the find was so quick, the
departure so sudden and instantaneous. I believe it was under
an hour ; and the distance covered was, I should guess, about
eight miles. Who, after to-day's experience, will lay down any
laws about scent? Light, gaudy, sunny, windless; one would
have said it must be a bad day. I have rarely seen a much
better ; and hounds, for the most part, carried a fine head.

Tuesday was a replica, on even a grander and more gorgeous
scale, of Monday. The frost (white) was harder and more search-
ing— the sun more potent and pervasive. These were the atmo-
spheric conditions which gave unusual brilliancy to a Kildare meet
at Sallins on Tuesday, the 2Oth inst.

I am sure that, spite of Turks and Egyptians, foreign loans
and American beef, Irishmen have ordered just as many scarlet
coats as usual this year ; but somehow they never appear during
the rainy cycle. To-day a bed of peonies, an army of emperor
butterflies, was a joke to the splendid array at modest Sallins, with
its dreary canal and grimy buildings. I should think half the Curragh
and Newbridge Garrisons were on horseback there — men of the
4th Foot, 7th Fusiliers, R.H.A., Engineers, 7th and 4th Dragoon
Guards — while Dublin contributed an odd Inniskillinger and Rifle-
man of the Brigade. Among the visitors were Captain and Lady
Maria Fitzclarence, the Hon. Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Bagot, the Mar-
chioness of Drogheda, Mrs. Wakefield, Mrs. Moore, Captain and
Mrs. Sheppard, Mr. Adair, Mr. Skeffington Smyth, Sir James Hig-
ginson and the Misses Higginson, Mr. Webber, and Mr. Power.

Mr. Mansfield led us off at once to Bellavilla Gorse, where the
find was very quick, and the departure equally so. A sharp gallop
through Longtown ended in a loss of our fox, without any prospect

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 379

of regaining the clue. We then returned to Bella villa, and found
a second fox directly, who turned towards Landenstown and the
canal. We followed over the country till arrested by wire couchant
but not concealed, over which some lead their horses, some
rode. Those who sought and found another way were arrested by
a gate, wired or tied to its post as usual. While we were think-
ing of how it should be opened, a one-armed sportsman — Mr. or
Captain Burke, I believe — rode at it with great intrepidity, and
smashed it for us. This run ended at about a mile " to ground,"
I think. Landenstown gave us a fox, who also got to ground
directly. The next move was across country to a wild bit of unin-
closed gorse — Gingerstown by name — to which I have frequently
introduced your readers, seeing that it has been the point of
departure of more than one sharp run. I must pass by some very
amusing episodes en route — horses much preferring jumping into
brooks to flying them, and sundry other minor mishaps. We are
now overlooking the drawing of Gingerstown furze brake, and the
hounds feathering gaily, from a railway bridge and other coigns of
vantage. There he goes ! a splendid dog fox ; but how can he
break through this cordon? How he did effect a passage is to me
a mystery ; but presently we are galloping away over pasture fields,
up a lane, till we find ourselves in Yeomanstown demesne, the
field broken up into skirmishing parties, extending over a very
wide area. Two columns, however, show considerable coherence :
one keeps along a road, the other tempts fields and fences, and
both soon unite. It were uninteresting to jot down the various
townlands we ran over. The bearings which gives an idea of the
situation are the Liffey behind us, the Hill of Allen very con-
spicuous, though at some distance to our left. A mile or two is
very heavy, swampy going ; then we emerge on to high light-going
grass land, which rises abruptly from a bit of red bog between us
and Allen Hill. Then we bear slightly to the right, jump a
number of nice wide flying fences, and find ourselves in a sort of
wood, where sundry hats strew the ground, knocked of by the

380 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

boughs. A ruined house of imposing proportions is on the left
hand — Donore; and if our vulp meant holding on to Landenstown
and Bellavilla, he was probably baulked at the road, for he turned
sharp to the right, brushed by Caragh Hill, and won his way to
Mr. O' Kelly's woods, where, I believe, he got to ground. Osbers-
town Corse was the next venture. It held as usual, and the path
of the fox was towards Oldtown, Naas, vid the canal ; then in a
line parallel to the Sallins road, and back towards the covert he
came from; a fine day's sport, and most unexpected on such a day
of glare and glitter. I fancy I am somewhat in arrear in my
notices of Kildare and its hunting. Let me glance retrospectively
and briefly at a few of their recenter days. The iS-milestone meet
was a very large one, and most fashionably attended. Dunstown
and Harristown proving foxless, the third covert broke the spell — •
the Blackthorns — sending forth a fox, who was killed after some
forty-five minutes' hunting of an uninteresting order; the brush was
presented to Lady Randolph Churchill. A Sallymount fox was
equally commonplace, but escaped, and so did a gallant major
whose horse got half-drowned in a bog drain, from which a rope
brigade extracted him. Silliott gave rather a better-class fox, who
got to ground, after a fair chase by Two-mile Chapel, in a burrow
near Stonebrook.

The Flag-staff meet, Curragh Camp, began auspiciously with the
pleasant hospitalities of the 4th Foot. The rest of the day was
spent in vain efforts to hunt an Eagle Hill and a Martinstown fox.

Tinorin cross-roads day began with dusting a hanging sort of
fox between the Corse and Hughestown Hill, and killing him at
last on the Golden Fort side of Tinorin.

Whitestown produced a fox who got to ground just as a run
seemed very promising. Copelands being blank, Cryhelp was
visited, with the result of a late run to the Scalp Mountain, vtd
Lemonstown Bridge and Rathallin House.

The Rathcoole meet was a very fine one, but the sport nil,
principally owing to hounds dividing on two foxes from Coolmine.

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 381

The Monasterevan meet on Monday afforded little or no
material to chronicle beyond the existence of foxes in the right
places.

In Louth, going back to the i3th, the pack did very little till
they got to Bragganstown, whence they had a slow forty-five
minutes via Dromisken, and a better twenty-two minutes later in
the day from Lisrenny to Ardee to ground.

On the 1 6th they met at Duleek, and killed a fox from
Gillanstown. Finding a second in Gaulstown, they ran him over
a favourite Meath line by Ardcarne nearly to Ardcath Chapel —
thirty-five minutes. In the Carnes there were a brace, and the
pack divided, one division killing a vixen ; the other ran theirs
through Hilltown, over the Bradda by Beaumont, over the Nanny
into Mount Hanover, when a snowstorm came on and spoilt a
good promising run.

While Kildare was enjoying such exciting sport on Tuesday,
Meath was engaged at Geraldstown in witnessing or taking part in
some chases, the nucleus to which was a very handsome cup given
by Mr. Preston, of Bellinter, for horses within a certain district
whose owners pursue with his harriers. I hear on all sides that
the day's chasing was most successful, and much enjoyed. Mr.
Dunne, to whom I have frequently referred in these letters, was
the chief winner ; while next to him came Mr. Dundas, of the
3rd Dragoons, whose name must be familiar to all readers of The
Field ; while Mr. Kelly, to whom fell the consolation plate, has
many friends among your clients. I hear champagne flowed
freely, and all went off well, but for one sad episode — the sudden
death, from heart disease, of Bill Ryan, while on his way to the
course. A splendid fearless horseman, who had commenced his
cross-country education in a hunting stable, turning hounds with
rough unfinished horses, he was one of the best performers I ever
saw on a somewhat raw, romping colt who wanted riding all round
the race track, and yet could not be hurried off his staying powers.
His integrity and respectful manner made him extremely popular

382 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

in an arena where the temptation to develop different charac-
teristics is, to many, overpowering. Fame should not be silent on
the merits of a rider who, with great opportunities,

" Ingentes oculo irretorto
Spectat acervos. "

A spirited fox-chase is no bad precursor to a splendid ball — for
splendour is, I think, the readiest and most effective word for the
dancing pageant to which the Inniskillings bade their immense
circle of friends welcome on Tuesday night, at the Exhibition
Palace in Dublin. If the loth don't, the 6th do dance, and are
the cause of dancing in others. Not strictly a hunt ball, its
components were mainly of the hunting guild, from H.R.H. the
Duke of Connaught to Madam Chose, to whom a cotillon or a
cramped country are equally welcome. Got up on a scale of
colossal magnificence, it was a colossal and magnificent success ;
and this I make bold to state pace the pen-and-ink Peris (perhaps
at the gate, disconsolate) who have recently been libelling our
society. The next day the Ward Union hounds gave the dancers
a splendid opportunity by their meet at Dunboyne : time 1.30.
The assembly was a representative one, spite of the engrossing
Aintree on your side the ditch — Kildare fox-hunters appearing in
fair numbers, among them Lord Cloncurry, Mr. D. Mahoney,
Mr. Rose, and Captain Saunders ; while Carlow contributed Mr.
Stewart Duckett. The enlargement took place at Nuttstown,
with a wide drop fence to commence with. This led to some
baulking, which is infectious among horses on cold days, perhaps
among men — the virus reached myself and hunter — and so fast
was the gallop for sixteen minutes that a check like this put us
clean out of court and out of sight directly. The line was by Mr.
Urell's farm, across the Black Bull road, over the Rathbeggan
river — a "ducking pond" to-day to not a few — to Batterstown.
A check occurred here, and then a view was gained; and then
fast and furious the line led on past Ballymaglasson, past "the

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 383

Hatchet," and on towards Culmullen Hill, beyond which point I
am unable to give evidence — a splendid gallop by all accounts.

Since sending off my Hunting Notes I have neither seen nor
heard of anything very brilliant in Meath, Kildare, or Westmeath.
In my next letter I propose to send you an aper$u of sport in
Wexford, which has been continuously good. Lord Doneraile's
hounds had, I hear, a very good day on the 22nd, when they met
at Miltown, and, after some ringing hunting, found a good sort of
fox in Boulard, whom they rattled through Shandrum and killed
in the open near Portlands; while on the same day Mr. Stackpoole's
harriers entered to stag by the banks of the Shannon. Sir David
Roche's resignation of the Limerick hounds is looked upon as so
calamitous to the hunting interests of that county, that every effort
will be made to induce him to continue to hold the horn for a
further term.

On Monday last Mr. Filgate had one of the best runs of the
season. It began at Charleville with some feinting round the
plantations ; then the fox broke away fairly for Castle Belling-
ham, passing through Boliss, Williamstown, Spencer Hill, and
Kilsaran on the way, hustled through the park ; here he ran
through Millsdown and Mayne to Greenmount, probably intending
to find shelter at Drumcar, but headed at the river en route, he ran
by Annagasson, through Mayne and Millsdown, again getting into
the garden at the latter place. From this he tried hard to retrace
his steps to Castle Bellingham, but on the boundary fence he found
his fate after one hour and twenty-five minutes of hunting pace —
fast on the grass, moderate on the cold fallows, when the hounds
were brought to their noses.

384 HIBERNIA VENATICA.

XXV.

; Should fox again so stoutly run,
May I be there to see the fun ! "

Observation and observations — Somerville — Fifteen mile stag-hunt ! — Captain
Candy and Culmullen— The Ladies Churchill— Wexford— Galway— Kil-
dare sport.

" POST Nubila Phoebus " is a saw old and hackneyed as the Latin
grammar, but as true as the sun himself. Of the rain that rained
every day, of the floods that invaded valleys and cities, not even
respecting the home of " the freeborn Englishman " or the home-
stead of the farmer, we had enough in the very " open " season —
so called, I presume, because the water sluices and supernal
shower baths were never closed. For the last ten days or so we
were beginning to forget our drenchings and preen our feathers in
the glorious sunshine and clear air which each day brought
regularly in its programme of cloudless skies and widened horizons.
A new heaven and a new earth seemed to have expanded to our
eager eyes. The dark cloud curtains which narrowed everything
to an inky frame were suddenly rolled up or disappeared, and, in
the beautiful words of Blanco White's sonnet,

" Lo, creation widened to man's view."

Light frosts every morning, hot sunshine for two or three hours
after noon, westerly winds prevailing when there was any wind
whatever, and, strangely enough, occasional dashes of snow or

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 385

hail, succeeded by summer-like weather — these conditions of the
atmosphere and thermometer have been ours for far more than
a whole week. All this reads dead against hunting ; and yet there
have been some very fine episodes in Ireland's hunting story
during this period. Scent has been hot and strong for brief
intervals, and hounds have run fast, while heavy men over fourteen
stone have enjoyed the novel and unwonted luxury of feeling their
horses galloping on top of the ground instead of through it.

It is a fortunate thing that all painful things come to an end
sooner or later, for things pleasant and enjoyable seem to be of
very brief duration, hardly giving us time to realize and savour
them. " 'Twas bright, 'twas beautiful, 'tis past ! " seems just now
a fitting epitaph for this glorious cycle thrown into one year. True,
though poetical !

Friday morning, the 23rd, was very inviting and genial in its
earlier hours, which were not under the spell of frost, as its
brethren have been of late, and a ride of fourteen or fifteen miles
to the meeting-place of the Meath hounds — Somerville, Lord
Athlumley's fine park — could hardly have been commenced under
pleasanter weather auspices. Soon a few light monitory showers
presaged the deluge that was to overtake one in a few hours ; but
the wise of weather signs and portents seemed to think that the
rain would hold off, for the day's hunting hours at any rate. Soli-
tary rides at slow pace engender reflection and observation, if the
air be clear enough to look about you, and you are not absorbed
in the great business of keeping yourself dry and warm. My first
observation was of a field of seeds into which I had noticed thirty
or forty horsemen jumping off the road some three months ago,
more or less ; and there was every hoof track clear cut as if by an
engraver's tool. I don't say the damage done amounted to much,
but certainly some deterioration of the crop ensued from the
stampede, and I believe " seeds " are nearly the only crop which
a field must injure by riding over in wet weather; others they may
injure, such as wheat, for instance, but I know that some men of

2 c

3 86 HIBERNIA VENA TIC A.

experience hold that the injury is generally inappreciable. With
regard to "seeds," I fancy few men would voluntarily ride over
them, except under such constraining necessity as keeping near
hounds when running very fast, or the blockade of other avenues
to them. Landlords, farmers, and all connected with the soil
would surely avoid them if possible ; and it appears to me that in
many cases the mischief arises from a want of perception of the
crop, which is taken for common grass or fallow, and neglect of
education in matters rural ; and to such men I address this para-
graph, feeling sure that all hunting men have the interests of the
farmers, their best friends and supporters, thoroughly at heart.
My second was made in passing the grand stand at the Fairy
House, where the sound of busy hammering was very audible from
the road. How these stands have multiplied in our island ! A
hundred years ago, the gallows tree and its pendant ornaments
were, we read, quite common sights for travellers as they posted
along armed to the teeth to resist the Dick Turpins and Duvals of
the road. Surely their absence and the substitution of these
platforms is some evidence of the march of progress and the reign
of common sense, though some hippophobists, mistaking abuse for
use, do tell us occasionally in strong language that the racecourse
is a stage to Tyburn and other infcrna. My third was made after
a survey of the splendid hunting panorama presented to the eye
from Kilbrew Hill. True, in the foreground there was the sur-
viving timber of a nobly planned park (now nearly ruinate) ; but
the treeless aspect of the landscape, particularly to eastward, was
the salient feature which commended itself to the hunting eye,
giving strong and most direct contradiction to a standard and
well-written topographical authority (Lewis), which says that " the
country in general has a very furnished appearance, much re-
sembling the county of Worcester or Hereford in England."
Methinks natives of those shires would find it very hard to trace
a resemblance. We are now at the entrance gates of Somerville,
11.30 a.m. lien sonnt, and a glance reveals that the meet is a very

HIBERNIA VENA TIC A. 387

smart one indeed in all its elements. His Royal Highness the
Duke of Connaught has patronized Somerville to-day, with his
equerry, Captain M. Fitzgerald. Lord Cloncurry and one or two
more Kildare men are to be seen in the crowd, while Louth con-
tributes a very large array of pursuers in the Messrs. Tiernan, Mr.
and the Misses Gradwell, Lady Macnaughten, Mr. De Gernon,
Mr. F. Osborn, Mr. Saurin, Mr. Blake, and many more. Among
the onlookers are Lady Athlumley and party, Lady Fanny
Lambart and the Misses Lambart, the Hon. Mrs. Donaldson, and
Miss Waller ; while among the ladies on horseback are the
Hon. Mrs. Candy, Miss Cruise, Miss Kearney, Miss Smith, and
Mrs. Chadwick.

A long tour round the park ends in nothing foxlike ; so we
pass on to Walshe's Gorse, in all certain hope and confidence of
finding its small well-known tenant at home, and awaiting us as
usual, with the probable result of a gallop by Athcarne Castle,
some water jumping, and the mysterious disappearance of the fox,
who has never been known, I hear, to go to ground, and is always
lost when found (" after being" would be better grammar), leading
some men to imagine that he climbs a tree after going a certain
distance, though another theory may be possible — namely, that
he runs along one of the many shallow brooks, and so kills all
scent. There was no scope for conjecture to-day, for within the
four corners of Walshe's Gorse there was no fox to be found.
Crossing a road, we come to Ballymacarvey Plantations, where
the drying winds have not affected the miry woodland roads,
leading a noble lord out to-day to say, " Here's a specimen of
English hunting ; " and not without truth. It is good for Meath
and Kildare men to meet these squelchy mud-ways occasionally,
if it were only to make them prize their general absence from
their territories more highly than they are inclined to. Slater's
Gorse, a few fields distant, is now searched, and searched in vain ;
the mid-day malison of the Laureate is on our county.

" Bad luck to the country ! the clock had struck two ;
We had found ne'er a fox in the gorses we drew."

3 88 HIBERNIA V EN ATI C A,

Luncheons, usually reserved till after the first run, are devoured
now, for the cold, sleety rain, driven into us by a cutting east
wind, . provokes hunger. It is, I suppose, about or nearly two
miles to Corballis Gorse by road. We fielded it, and found some
very pleasant flying fences en route to keep our horses in practice.
One of them, a river or dyke, was charged in spirited style by a
hard-going light-weight, who has won his spurs in the hunting and
chasing fields of his country; but horse and man did not
sympathize — the latter full of jump, the former full of swerve and
stop — the result was a bath, though a few drops more or less
to-day mattered little. We are now by Corballis Gorse, a very
happy-looking kennel. " There he goes ! " says somebody, as the
fox tries to break towards Corbalton — a bad line for the riding
division : but he has turned back, and made his exit in a precisely
contrary direction. We on the western side have to gallop fast,
jump a fence or two, and gain the road; others ride a line parallel
to it. An intersecting road is crossed, and the green large fields
of Macetown are all around. But the fox seems to have baffled
the pack, and, though they work on by Rathfeigh in a hesitating
fashion, it is hardly hunting. The sport of kings ceases to
exhilarate under our present conditions — no scent, and a needle
bath of sleety rain making horse and man most uncomfortable.

Courtown was the fixture for the Kildare hounds on Saturday,
the 24th, and the fame of Courtown and the railway opportunities
brought a very smart crowd together — a large part of hunting
Kildare, some Meath men, some four or five of the Inniskillings,
some of the yth Dragoons and 4th Foot ; while among the visitors
were Captain and the Hon. Mrs. Candy, Mr. and Mrs. Adair.
The Ladies Fitzgerald and Lord Maurice attended the meet,
which was nearly, though not quite, as numerous and fashionable
as the last Sallins gathering. A night of storm and rain was
succeeded by a very lovely morning, which inspired confidence,
though lowering clouds in the distance and a watery sun ought to
have been warning sufficient to bring the usual supplies of water-

HIBERNIA YEN ATI C A. 389

proofs and over-alls. Few heeded the portents, however, and,
if they had long distances to ride homewards, must have put an
extra stone or so of water on their horses, for by noon the
rain began, and for several hours Sheridan's line was literally
true —

" Drip ! drip ! drip ! There's nothing here but dripping ! "

But I anticipate my tale of negations ! Courtown House stands
on a slight elevation, surrounded by belts of plantations of some
extent. It is very pretty to watch the drawing all round, with
little interludes of sunk fence and other jumping, and much
galloping over the turf of the park. We had all these fair sights
to-day, but no fox ; so we jogged on further westwards to Bally-
caghan Gorse, nothing doubting the certainty of a find. We were
disappointed again ; nor had we the usual excitement of a fast
gallop over a mile or two of old turf, with an occasional fence
before us to relieve the monotony of drawing blanks in our fox
lottery ; for our master led us some four or five miles round the
road to Cappagh Gorse, when we learnt that the vixen had been
let in, and her mate had gone abroad somewhere. Another long
dreary jog takes us to Donadea Old Gorse, which is foxless.
Bellavilla, drawn twice last Tuesday, is now the object of the
inquisitors ; and here I left them, thinking the game hardly worth
the candle— the latter represented by a ride homewards of, per-
ha